This is a substantially revised, refocused, and updated version of an earlier draft paper, exploring the significant role Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) plays in facilitating or impeding legislative and regulatory policy decisions. The paper centers around three case studies of CBAs EPA prepared...

Environmental, health, and safety advocates, say Richard Revesz and Michael Livermore, have been wrongly hostile to cost-benefit analysis because of a false belief that it is biased against regulation. The bias against regulation, while real, has been the artifact of historical accident - the...

As EPA rolls out controversial regulations on power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, a vocal group of legislators, industry groups, and legal and economic scholars are crying foul, arguing that EPA didn't “follow the rules” when it conducted its cost-benefit analyses of these...

This updated draft paper explores the significant role Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis (RCBA) plays in facilitating or impeding collective action. Through case studies, the paper shows that well-constructed RCBAs have (1) facilitated collective action (including in cases where explicit...

The view that intergenerational distributive justice and efficiency should be treated separately is familiar, yet controversial. This article elaborates the often-implicit justifications for separate treatment and provides a more express statement of how and when such treatment is appropriate....

Although government agencies increasingly use behavioral irrationalities as a justification for government intervention, the paradox is that these same government policies are also subject to similar behavioral inadequacies across a broad range of policies. This article develops an analysis of...

Assessing regulatory benefits is crucial to cost-benefit analysis. And yet, quantification can be problematic, either because of the nature of the benefit themselves or because of uncertainty about achieving them. In such situations, Cass Sunstein calls for the use of a breakeven analysis based...

Agencies are accustomed to considering questions of discounting — the process that makes monetary amounts comparable through time. But valuing the future is a distinctive enterprise for reasons that go beyond discounting. This Article explores two basic features of time that create challenges...

The social discount rate used in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is an interest rate applied to benefits and costs that are expected to occur in the future in order to convert them into a present value. This conversion is done to ascertain what those benefits and costs are worth today. The social...