Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

An economist and a law professor debunk the use of cost-benefit analysis in deciding whether human life and the environment are worth protecting. EPA estimates of the value of one human life: in 2000: $6.1 million. In 2002: $3.7 million. Is the price of human life going down? Does it cost any less to protect the natural world? There is no meaningful dollar price for life or nature, say economist Frank Ackerman and law professor Lisa Heinzerling in their critique of recent market-based assaults on health and environmental protection. Though cost-benefit analysis sounds like a reasonable way to gauge the extent to which we should regulate private industry, when applied to "priceless" concepts such as childhood disease or the value of a stable climate in years to come, the paradigm is misguided. Decisions such as removing arsenic from drinking water or weighing the risks of cell phone use while driving should not be left to back-room bean counters. Such issues call for informed public debate drawing on moral, philosophical, and societal considerations beyond market-based assessments. Debunking the overall concept of cost-benefit analysis and the fuzzy math behind it, Priceless is the first comprehensive rebuttal of a strategy at the heart of the current administration's anti-regulatory binge.