Recently, for many health economics researchers, empirical estimation of the monetary valuation of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) has become an important endeavour. Different philosophical and practical approaches to this have emerged. On the one hand, there is a view that, with health-care...

The aim of the study reported in this paper is to test the hypothesis that individual utility of wealth functions may violate the assumption of smoothness that underpins the standard analysis of the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) and safety. In order to do so we examine the way in which the...