TY  - JOUR
AU  - Birchenall,Javier A.
AU  - Soares,Rodrigo R.
TI  - Altruism, Fertility, and the Value of Children: Health Policy Evaluation and Intergenerational Welfare
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12836
PY  - 2007
Y2  - January 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12836
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12836.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Javier Birchenall
Department of Economics
University of California
2127 North Hall
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
E-Mail: jabirche@econ.ucsb.edu

Rodrigo R. Soares
Departamento de Economia
Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
Rua Marques de Sao Vicente, 225
22451-900 Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Brazil
Tel:  5521/3257-1078
Fax: 5521/3257-1084
E-Mail: soares@econ.puc-rio.br
AB  - This paper accounts for the value of children and future generations in the evaluation of health policies. This is achieved through the incorporation of altruism and fertility in "value of life" type of framework. We are able to express adults' willingness to pay for changes in child mortality and also to incorporate the welfare of future generations in the evaluation of current policies. Our model clarifies a series of puzzles from the literature on the "value of life" and on intergenerational welfare comparisons. We show that, by incorporating altruism and fertility into the analysis, the estimated welfare gain from recent reductions in mortality in the U.S. easily doubles.
ER  -