“I usually estimate that the U.S. government saves about one life per $10 million that it spends well.”
I’m curious, why do you think this? The value of statistical life (VSL) you linked is about the benefit of saving a life, not about the cost. If we assume the government consistently uses this $10 million VSL threshold for interventions, it could reflect the (marginal) cost of saving a life. But this feels like a weird approach. It might be useful to get a sense of order of magnitude, but I’m somewhat skeptical
I’m curious, why do you think this? The value of statistical life (VSL) you linked is about the benefit of saving a life, not about the cost. If we assume the government consistently uses this $10 million VSL threshold for interventions, it could reflect the (marginal) cost of saving a life. But this feels like a weird approach. It might be useful to get a sense of order of magnitude, but I’m somewhat skeptical
Yeah, it was intended to be a crude order-of-magnitude estimate. See my response to essentially the same objection here.