An economic model of social capital and health
Economic research on social capital usually finds that increments of social interaction improve health. Urban economists and planners naturally seek public projects that encourage residents to interact beneficially. Many such projects, such as public parks and playgrounds, beaches, policing and safety, local transportation, and improvements in shopping areas, can be expensive but it is likely that the city dweller tends to consider the expense only in general terms when voting whether to approve a tax increase. For this reason our approach here takes the insertion of such public goods as exogenous to the choice of the individual subject, maximizing his or her utility…
In this article the hedonic regression technique is used to estimate the value of traffic safety, using information from the Swedish market for automobiles. The results from the study show that the market price of an automobile is negatively correlated with its inherent risk level, i.e. Swedish car consumers pay a safety premium for safer cars. In comparison to previous Swedish stated-preference studies, this study reveals a lower willingness to pay for additional car safety, which might be a result of the interaction between government interventions and individual self-insurance and self-protection.