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Background: The value of a life is regularly monetised by government departments for informing resource allocation. Guidance documents indicate how economic evaluation should be conducted, often specifying precise values for different impacts. However, we find different values of life and health are used in analyses by departments within the same government despite commonality in desired outcomes. This creates potential inconsistencies in considering trade-offs within a broader public sector spending budget. We provide evidence to better inform the political process and to raise important issues in assessing the value of public expenditure across different sectors. Methods: Our document analysis identifies thresholds, explicitly or implicitly, as observed in government-related publications in the following public sectors: health, social care, transport, and environment. We include both demand-side and supply-side thresholds, understood as societies' and governments' willingness to pay for health gains. We look at key countries that introduced formal economic evaluation processes early on and have impacted other countries' policy development: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. We also present a framework to consider how governments allocate resources across different public services. Results: Our analysis supports that identifying and describing the Value of a Life from disparate public sector activities in a manner that facilitates comparison is theoretically meaningful. The optimal allocation of resources across sectors depends on the relative position of benefits across different attributes, weighted by the social value that society puts on them. The value of a Quality-Adjusted Life Year is generally used as a demand-side threshold by Departments of transport and environment. It exceeds those used in health, often by a large enough proportion to be a multiple thereof. Decisions made across departments are generally based on an unspecified rationing rule. Conclusions: Comparing government expenditure across different public sector departments, in terms of the value of each department outcome, is not only possible but also desirable. It is essential for an optimal resource allocation to identify the relevant social attributes and to quantify the value of these attributes for each department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the carbon capture, utilization, and storage research performance of 31 countries from the knowledge spillover perspective. Knowledge spillover efficiency—operationally defined as the level of academic and practical influence of research and development outputs—is measured using the output-oriented constant return to scale, variable returns to scale, and super efficiency models using data envelopment analysis. We consider the number of patents and research articles from 2000 to 2016 as input variables, while the number of research article citations, patent citations, and registration of triadic patent families as of 2017 are the three output variables. The samples for measuring efficiency were obtained by collecting patents and research articles using Wintelips and Scopus database, respectively. The results of the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis were used to examine each country's position in terms of knowledge spillover. More specifically, the US, European countries, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand showed relatively high efficiency, which might be characteristic of their R&D policies and environmental factors. Moreover, the returns to scale analysis provide implications for R&D resource allocation as to whether to encourage the quantitative or qualitative expansion of R&D outputs to improve efficiency. This study can provide meaningful information to policymakers to identify ex post R&D activities and planning. • Examines carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology knowledge spillover efficiency. • Employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods to compare countries' knowledge spillover efficiency. • The US, European countries, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand show relatively high knowledge spillover efficiency. • Returns to scale (RTS) analysis provides implications for R&D resource allocation. • Provides meaningful information to policymakers to determine CCUS R&D strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]