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Cost-Benefit Analysis, Who’s Your Daddy?1

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  • Sunstein, Cass R.

Abstract

If policymakers could measure the actual welfare effects of regulations, and if they had a properly capacious sense of welfare, they would not need to resort to cost-benefit analysis, which gives undue weight to some values and insufficient weight to others. Surveys of self-reported well-being provide valuable information, but it is not yet possible to “map” regulatory consequences onto well-being scales. It follows that at the present time, self-reported well-being cannot be used to assess the welfare effects of regulations. Nonetheless, greatly improved understandings are inevitable, and current findings with respect to reported well-being – above all the serious adverse effects of unemployment – deserve to play a role in regulatory policymaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Sunstein, Cass R., 2016. "Cost-Benefit Analysis, Who’s Your Daddy?1," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 107-120, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jbcoan:v:7:y:2016:i:01:p:107-120_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Kip Viscusi, W. & Gayer, Ted, 2016. "Rational Benefit Assessment for an Irrational World: Toward a Behavioral Transfer Test1," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 69-91, April.
    2. Ferrari, Giulia & Torres-Rueda, Sergio & Michaels-Igbokwe, Christine & Watts, Charlotte & Jewkes, Rachel & Vassall, Anna, 2019. "Economic evaluation of public health interventions: an application to interventions for the prevention of violence against women and girls implemented by the “what works to prevent violence against wo," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103639, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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