It would mean that if you decided a life was worth a trillion dollars.
This is intrinsically a very hard question to answer. Fortunately there are ways to make better estimates for that number than by guessing.
The way people behave when buying either insurance products, products which enhance their safety (in particular: reduce the risk of mortality) are informative about these implicit valuations.
There is a large literature in economics about this (Kip Viscusi at Vanderbilt has an accessible book about the topic, since he has written many of these papers) and of course the EPA and other government agencies have estimates as well.
This is intrinsically a very hard question to answer. Fortunately there are ways to make better estimates for that number than by guessing.
The way people behave when buying either insurance products, products which enhance their safety (in particular: reduce the risk of mortality) are informative about these implicit valuations.
There is a large literature in economics about this (Kip Viscusi at Vanderbilt has an accessible book about the topic, since he has written many of these papers) and of course the EPA and other government agencies have estimates as well.