PERSONAL WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY FOR PREVENTION - EVALUATING THE CONSEQUENCES OF ACCIDENTS AS A BASIS FOR PREVENTIVE MEASURES

This paper argues that if scarce resources are to be allocated efficie ntly and to greatest advantage then it is necessary to have explicit m onetary measures of the benefits of reduced accident rates so that the se benefits can be weighed against costs in the process of determining the appropriate amount to expend on alcohol-related accident preventi on programmes. ne conceptual issues related to the definition and esti mation of monetary values of safety are discussed and the case in favo ur of basing such values on individual willingness to pay for safety i s developed. The paper then summarises existing empirical estimates of willingness-to-pay based values for the prevention of fatalities and reports the preliminary results of recent work aimed at estimating wil lingness-to-pay based values for the prevention of non-fatal injuries. The paper concludes by examining the applicability of existing empiri cal estimates of the value of safety in the alcohol-related accident c ontext and the transferability of estimates derived in developed count ries to the developing country context.