This paper, a comment on an essay by Satz and White that appeared in the IFS Deaton Review (Sept. 2021), argues that redistribution of wealth for the purpose of advancing equality (rather than improving the worst off) can be provided an institutional defense against the "leveling down" charge...

This paper analyzes cost-benefit analysis from legal, economic, and philosophical perspectives. The traditional defense of cost-benefit analysis is that it maximizes a social welfare function that aggregates unweighted and unrestricted preferences. We follow many economists and philosophers who...

The regulatory state has become a cost-benefit state, in the sense that under prevailing executive orders, agencies must catalogue the costs and benefits of regulations before issuing them, and in general, must show that their benefits justify their costs. Agencies have well-established tools...