Seven Reactions to the FTC’s Policy Statement on Unfair Methods of Competition
Seven friends of the blog offer their initial reactions to the FTC’s recent policy statement on unfair methods of competition.
The Shaky Legal and Policy Foundations of Cost-Benefit Orthodoxy in Environmental Law
Neither Congress nor the Court have called for a one-size-fits-all approach to regulatory analysis, yet CBA continues to loom large in environmental policymaking. Agencies should reach for other tools that better capture the advantages and disadvantages of regulatory alternatives.
The “Value of a Statistical Life”: Reflections from the Pandemic
Economists who insist that the “value of a statistical life” can be determined solely by looking at the preferences of individual economic agents in a market overstate their case and miss crucial alternatives. The pandemic has shown that democratic determinations of value for non-market goods (like human life) deserve greater consideration.
A Post-Neoliberal Regulatory Analysis for a Post-Neoliberal World
While treating economic growth as the summum bonum of public policy may reflect the preferences of economists, large majorities of voters across the political spectrum oppose using the aim of wealth maximization to guide regulatory decision-making. The time has come to abandon cost-benefit analysis and adopt a progressive approach to regulatory analysis.
The Limits of the Cost-Benefit Worldview: A Disability-Informed Perspective
Two examples from the experience of people living with disabilities demonstrate CBA’s shortcomings.
Modernizing Regulatory Review Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis
CBA’s reliance on a “partial equilibrium” falls apart under the weight of real-world complexity. Rather than attempting to reform cost-benefit analysis, OIRA should reject it outright.
Let’s Politicize Cost-Benefit Analysis
Conservatives have used cost-benefit analysis much more strategically than liberals to advance underlying political goals. Rethinking CBA within an LPE framework will require not only critique of its technical assumptions, but a willingness to be similarly strategic in thinking about its deployment.
Equity in Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis
Standard cost-benefit analysis exacerbates inequality by assigning greater weight to benefits that accrue to the rich. But it need not. Here are three strategies for bringing concerns about distribution within the CBA framework.
Climate Change, Racial Justice, and Cost-Benefit Analysis
Two entrenched features of cost-benefit analysis ensure that the benefits of regulatory measures addressing climate change and racial injustice will be diminished and deformed in the process of valuing them: discounting and monetary valuation.
Cost-Benefit Analysis at a Crossroads: A Symposium on the Future of Quantitative Policy Evaluation
Introducing an LPE symposium on the promise, the perils, and the possible future of cost-benefit analysis.
Who Should Pay for Police Misconduct?
George Floyd’s family will almost certainly bring a lawsuit against Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, the three officers on the scene who stood by, and the City as a whole. Assuming Floyd’s family prevails, who will foot the bill? And who should?
Executive Action as Power Building: A Response to Professor Doerfler
Ryan Doerfler has an article over at Jacobin reacting in part to my argument that current law enables the Secretary of Education to cancel as much student debt as she wants by using her enforcement discretion. Professor Doerfler is not so much arguing against my proposal (for which he has some flattering words) as he…
Losing at Its Own Game: the Right Retreats from Cost-Benefit Analysis
Over the past four decades, the right wing has painstakingly built an intellectual scheme to try to justify the weakening of regulatory public health protections on the basis of neoliberal economic theory. But a couple of decades ago, when the EPA began to figure out how—at least sometimes—to beat them at their own game, that…
Medicare for All: How to Reduce Inequality in the Long-Term Care Market
This post is part of our symposium on Medicare for All. You can find all the posts in the series here. *** Medicare for All has the potential to address gaps in access to quality long-term care services for the elderly by mitigating some of the inequities in the market for long-term care. It could do…
To Democratize Environmental Law, Let Ordinary People Decide
Environmental law has never felt so undemocratic. On nearly every aspect of environmental protection, the federal government is disconnected from the desires of its citizens. The best most citizens can hope for is that a still-distant election will produce a friendlier administration, one that will manage to embrace our priorities despite the immense influence of industry. There’s an irony beneath that sense of powerlessness, one that reveals a tragic flaw in modern environmental law. I want to both explore that flaw and introduce a tool from environmental law’s past that might help fix it. It’s a tool that entrusts ordinary people to decide: the jury.