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The subjective value of a life with Down syndrome : Evidence from amnocentesis decision

Gajdos, Thibault; Garrouste, Clémentine; Geoffard, Pierre-Yves (2016), The subjective value of a life with Down syndrome : Evidence from amnocentesis decision. https://basepub.dauphine.psl.eu/handle/123456789/21820

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Type
Document de travail / Working paper
Date
2016
Publisher
Université Paris Dauphine
Series title
Document de travail LEDa-LEGOS
Series number
1/2016
Published in
Paris
Pages
20
Metadata
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Author(s)
Gajdos, Thibault cc
Laboratoire de psychologie cognitive [LPC]
Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique [CREST]
Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne [CES]
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives [Marseille] [LNC]
Théorie économique, modélisation et applications [THEMA]
Garrouste, Clémentine
Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion des Organisations de Santé [Legos]
Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine [LEDa]
Geoffard, Pierre-Yves
Center for Economic Policy Research [CEPR]
Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques [PJSE]
Abstract (EN)
Using a simple theoretical decision model and an original database, we were able to elicit thedistribution of the utility value of having a child with Down syndrome for a large sample of Frenchpregnant women (n = 28, 341) between 2003 and 2007. We found that, on a scale where the value ofa fetal death is 0 and the value of a healthy child is 1, the mean value for a child with Down syndromeis about −0.6. Assuming that the policymaker used the same decision model as the women, we inferfrom the French amniocentesis reimbursement regulation an implicit social value for a child withDown syndrome of −2.5. We conclude from our study that the policymaker is more likely to preventthe birth of children with Down syndrome than French women themselves.
Subjects / Keywords
Amniocentesis choices; Expected utility framework
JEL
I10 - General
C01 - Econometrics