Following the Money: A Statistical Investigation into Health Valuations

Understanding the value of health is central to policy appraisal. Two recent studies used the same data and similar methods to estimate the monetary value of health measured in QALYs. However, they reported headline values that differ by an order of magnitude. This talk offers a statistical detective story: we first replicate both papers, then systematically probe alternative specifications to identify which choices are responsible for the divergence, until the culprit is identified. The analysis reveals how seemingly minor methodological decisions can compound into large differences in results.