This is a pretty good overview of the issues, but I note one significant omission. > Take a program to save lives in a large, well-known population with a risk

This is a pretty good overview of the issues, but I note one significant omission. > Take a program to save lives in a large, well-known population with a risk that’s well-understood but small, and then ask, OK, what’s that worth? You can figure that out through surveys or consumer behavior— “revealed preference,” as economists call it. Take what people will spend individually to avoid a teensy risk, and multiply it by the odds of that risk coming to pass and the total number of people it might affect. That’s it. Humans are notoriously bad at estimating risk, especially with very small numbers. We can't even accurately tell you which of two small risks is greater. Asking people for estimates could be a good system if there were a solid correlation between risk and cost.