Biasing, Debiasing, and the Law

Abstract

In this essay, we build on the existing literature on the use of legal strategies for addressing problems of biased judgment and behavior, exploring how heuristics and biases may be exploited to foster efficiency in the presence of other incentive alignment problems. We also introduce two new categories: the hitherto unnoticed counterparts to debiasing and insulating strategies, which we will call "benevolent biasing," and "cognitive leveraging" strategies.

Keywords: benevolent biasing, insulating strategies, cognitive leveraging

JEL Classification: D03, D60, K00