WEALTHIER IS HEALTHIER

A common attitude among environmentalists is that in formulating health, safety, and environmental regulations, we should ignore the economic costs of those regulations. As Lori Mott of the Environmental Defense Fund puts it, there is "no room for consideration of the benefits of pesticides.".61 Yet from the point of view of health and safety, it's hard to imagine worse advice. As it turns out, higher incomes for countries and for individuals contribute more to good health and life expectancy than all risk regulations combined. In general, the higher our income, the more options we have -- to change our lifestyle, regulate our diet, and choose our risks selectively.62

The higher our income, the more likely we are to fly rather than drive, to drive larger and therefore safer cars, to pay for safety equipment and safety-enhancing maintenance on our automobiles, to maintain working smoke alarms in our homes, etc. Higher incomes open the door to literally thousands of opportunities to improve our health and safety.

Mortality and Income. Table V presents life expectancy data taken from countries around the world. As the table shows, people in more developed countries have considerably longer life expectancies than people at lower levels of economic development despite -- and arguably because of -- the greater use of chemicals. What is true of whole societies is also true of the individuals within them. For example,63

• In England, adult males in the highest socioeconomic class earn more than twice as much income as individuals in the lowest socioeconomic class.

• Death from cancer among males in the highest socioeconomic class are 25 percent below the national average and death from respiratory disease is63 percent below the national average.

• In contrast, death from cancer and respiratory disease is 31 percent and 87 percent above the national average, respectively, among males in the lowest socioeconomic class.

Regulation and Income. Thus it is sobering to realize that government regulation in general, and health and safety regulation in particular, may have done far more harm than good when measured solely in terms of effects on health. For example,.66

• Between 1959 and 1969, productivity in U. S. manufacturing increased by almost one percent annually.

• Between 1973 and 1978, however, manufacturing productivity fell by more than one-half of one percent annually.

Level of Economic Development (Average Energy Consumption)1	Average Life Span (Years)
	1950	1960	1970
10	45	52	56
100	48	53	57
1,000	64	66	65
10,000	67	71	72

1 Measured as kilograms of coal (or the energy equivalent) consumed per person per year

. Source: Aaron Wildavsky, Searching for Safety (New Brunswick: Transactions Books, 1988), Table I, p. 62

• Thirty-one percent of the overall drop in manufacturing productivity was due to regulatory burdens created during the 1970s by OSHA and EPA.

• Nineteen percent of the drop in productivity growth was due to OSHA regulations, and 12 percent was due to regulation by the EPA.

Since increases in worker incomes are roughly equal to increases in productivity, it appears that the damage to health and safety OSHA and EPA may have caused by reducing income growth may have more than offset any health improvements these agencies may have been made through regulation.