That is the subject of the new JPE paper by Charles I. Jones, here is the abstract:

Some technologies save lives—new vaccines, new surgical techniques, safer highways. Others threaten lives—pollution, nuclear accidents, global warming, and the rapid global transmission of disease. How is growth theory altered when technologies involve life and death instead of just higher consumption? This paper shows that taking life into account has first-order consequences. Under standard preferences, the value of life may rise faster than consumption, leading society to value safety over consumption growth. As a result, the optimal rate of consumption growth may be substantially lower than what is feasible, in some cases falling all the way to zero.

It is a well-known stylized fact that the share of health care in gdp is generally rising…

Which is better? A society with quite patient, very long-lived individuals with a static standard of living, or a society of people who die at eighty but manage to double living standards every generation?

Which would we choose?

Addendum: Here is an earlier, “less gated” version of the paper.