Cost-Benefit Analysis, Who's Your Daddy?

Forthcoming, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis

13 Pages Posted: 6 Jun 2015 Last revised: 5 Dec 2015

See all articles by Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein

Harvard Law School; Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Date Written: July 28, 2015

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.

Keywords: cost-benefit analysis, subjective well-being, happiness, experienced well-being, welfare

JEL Classification: D02, D73, D78, I18, K23

Suggested Citation

Sunstein, Cass R., Cost-Benefit Analysis, Who's Your Daddy? (July 28, 2015). Forthcoming, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2614472 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2614472

Cass R. Sunstein (Contact Author)

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Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

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