Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the Environment

by Cass R. Sunstein

What should be done about airplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Decision-makers often respond to temporary fears, and the result is a situation of hysteria and neglect--and unnecessary illness and death. Risk and Reason explains the sources of these problems and explores what can be done about them. It shows how individual thinking and social interactions lead us in foolish directions. Offering sound proposals for social reform, it explains how a more sensible system of risk regulation, embodied in the idea of a "cost-benefit state," could save many thousands of lives and many billions of dollars too--and protect the environment in the process. Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters. His many books include Republic.com (Princeton, 2001) and Designing Democracy (Oxford, 2001). He has worked in the United States Department of Justice and advised on law reform and constitution-making in many nations.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Law

360 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2002

About the author

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

File this one under books I disagree with but grudgingly respect. Cass Sunstein argues here (quite passionately) for wider use of formal cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in government policy making. Lest you think this is merely a dry legal exercise, note that Sunstein is currently serving as President Obama's regulatory czar where he is putting his stamp on all manner of government regulations. The arguments in this book may well play a role in the safety of your workplace or the quality of the air you breathe.

Formal CBA is the notion that any government action should be justified by an accounting of all costs and benefits. In theory that's pretty unobjectionable, but in practice CBA has been used to tear down public health and environmental protections. Sunstein swears he is not a de-regulator. As a liberal, he claims to be interested in making government regulation more efficient by targeting scare resources at the most pressing problems.

There are still a lot of progressive objections to this sort of thing. For example, it is easy to measure costs, but much harder to measure benefits. What monetary value do you place on cancer deaths averted? For another, most costs and benefits are not shared equitably - how do we deal with that? For a third, cost calculations often involve future economic predictions which are, to put it charitably, extremely uncertain.

Naturally Sunstein anticipates and responds to all these objections and more, but I was left with the distinct feeling that CBA is sometimes a way of wrapping your assumptions in numbers in order to give them an aura of scientific certainty. In one especially damning chapter, Sunstein describes the range of cost-benefit balances for one proposed regulation (arsenic in drinking water). The range is so enormous that you could justify regulating or not based on which assumptions you choose to make.

Sunstein says that despite all these flaws it is better to do CBA than to be in the dark. Your mileage may vary.

[Doc Opp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunstein is one of the most prominent advocates of cost-benefit analysis in public policy and law. In this book, he clearly lays out his argument for why using cost-benefit analysis is a good idea. Importantly, he admits and discusses the weaknesses as well. So, while the book obviously has a pro Cost-benefit slant, it is by no means misleadingly biased. Sunstein is a good writer, and has very persuasive arguments. A must read for anybody interested in policy or policy analysis.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow - I had to speed through this in two days (part of some research for a class). Anyway, he didn't completely convince me about the need for cost-benefit analysis in every instance. His arguments were thoughtful and well-discussed, but I still just feel that there is something missing--that some environmental concerns are important despite cost. Of course I can see how my reasoning is flawed, according to his arguments, but nonetheless, I just feel there's something missing.

[Josh Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dull but compelling.