The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF), implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF), and value of a statistical life (VSL). In social and political sciences, it is the marginal cost of death prevention in a certain class of circumstances. In many studies the value also includes the quality of life, the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potential of a given person especially for an after-the-fact payment in a wrongful death claim lawsuit.
Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law. The field emerged in the United States during the early 1960s, primarily from the work of scholars from the Chicago school of economics such as Aaron Director, George Stigler, and Ronald Coase. The field uses economics concepts to explain the effects of laws, assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and predict which legal rules will be promulgated. There are two major branches of law and economics; one based on the application of the methods and theories of neoclassical economics to the positive and normative analysis of the law, and a second branch which focuses on an institutional analysis of law and legal institutions, with a broader focus on economic, political, and social outcomes, and overlapping with analyses of the institutions of politics and governance.
Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed or potential courses of action, and to estimate or evaluate the value against the cost of a decision, project, or policy. It is commonly used to evaluate business or policy decisions, commercial transactions, and project investments. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must conduct cost-benefit analyses before instituting regulations or deregulations.
The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigler are considered the leading scholars of the Chicago school.
Cass Robert Sunstein is an American legal scholar known for his work in constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and behavioral economics. He is also The New York Times best-selling author of The World According to Star Wars (2016) and Nudge (2008). He was the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.
Sir Oliver Simon D'Arcy Hart is a British-born American economist, currently the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. Together with Bengt R. Holmström, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016.
Vanderbilt University Law School is the law school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law enrolls approximately 640 students, with each entering Juris Doctor class consisting of approximately 175 students.
Henry G. Manne was an American writer and academic, considered a founder of the law and economics discipline. He was Dean Emeritus of the George Mason University School of Law.
Ted Gayer is an American economist who is currently President of the Niskanen Center. He was formerly an executive vice president at the Brookings Institution, where he was also Director of the Economic Studies Program, and the Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow. On June 12, 2022, Gayer was appointed acting president of the Brookings Institution following the resignation of John R. Allen that same day.
Robert Butler "Bob" Wilson, Jr. is an American economist who is the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus at Stanford University. He was jointly awarded the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with his Stanford colleague and former student Paul R. Milgrom, "for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats". Two more of his students, Alvin E. Roth and Bengt Holmström, are also Nobel Laureates in their own right.
Martin Lawrence Weitzman was an economist and a professor of economics at Harvard University. He was among the most influential economists in the world according to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc). His latest research was largely focused on environmental economics, specifically climate change and the economics of catastrophes.
The Gary Becker Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary center for research in economics. The institute was established at the University of Chicago in June 2011. It brought together the activities of two formerly independent economic research centers at the university: the Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics and the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory.
Burton A. Weisbrod is an American economist who pioneered the theory of option value, and the theory of why voluntary nonprofit organizations exist, He also developed the methodology for valuing voluntary labor. He advanced methods for benefit-cost analysis of public policy by recognizing the roles of externality effects and collective public goods in program evaluation. He applied those methods to the fields of education, health care, poverty, public interest law, and nonprofit organization. Over a career of fifty years, he published 16 books and over 200 scholarly articles. He is currently the Cardiss Collins Professor of Economics Emeritus and a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.
Kyle D. Logue is an American legal scholar on private law. He is the Douglas A. Kahn Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He was appointed to serve as interim dean of the Law School effective January 1, 2024, until a permanent dean is appointed. From 2006 to 2016, Logue was the Wade H. and Dores M. McCree Collegiate Professor of Law.
Alan Mitchell Polinsky is the Josephine Scott Crocker Professor of Law and Economics at Stanford Law School. At Stanford, Polinsky is the founder and director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics. He is also a past president of the American Law and Economics Association.
Jesse William Markham was an American economist. Markham was best known for his work on antitrust policy, price theory and industrial organization. Markham was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), and the former chief economist to the Federal Trade Commission.
The Regulatory Review is an online, daily publication devoted to coverage of regulatory news, analysis, and commentary. It is produced under the auspices of the Penn Program on Regulation and operated by students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The Regulatory Review's content includes essays produced by the publication's staff members as well as regular contributions from scholars, public officials, attorneys, and others interested in regulatory developments.
Jonathan B. Wiener is the William R. and Thomas L. Perkins Professor of Law at Duke Law School, Professor of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy, at Duke University. He is a leading scholar of regulation and risk analysis.
The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of risk analysis and decision-making under uncertainty. It was established in 1988 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is W. Kip Viscusi, who was also the journal's founding editor. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2021 impact factor of 3.977.
Ariel Porat is the president of Tel Aviv University (TAU), a full professor and former dean at TAU's Buchmann Faculty of Law. Until his appointment as president, he was a distinguished visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, incumbent of the Alain Poher Chair in Private Law at TAU, and recipient of The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture for Legal Research.
