For instance, the value of “one statistical life” in the U.S.—i.e., the cost to the U.S. economy resulting from the death of an average American whom society has gone to the expense of rearing and educating but who dies before a lifetime of contributing to the national economy—is usually estimated at around $5 million. Even if one takes the conservative estimate of annual U.S. deaths due to air pollution as 130,000, then deaths due to air pollution cost us about $650 billion per year. That illustrates why the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970, although its cleanup measures do cost money, has yielded
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