Valuing Life Book Reviews

Valuing Life by Cass R. Sunstein Book Summary

“Clear explanations and concrete examples of how the behavioral orientation in economics can contribute to the world of cost/benefit policy formulation.” —Choice

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is the United States’ regulatory overseer. In Valuing Life, New York Times–bestselling author and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein draws on his firsthand experience as the Administrator of OIRA from 2009 to 2012 to argue that we can humanize regulation—and save lives in the process.

As OIRA Administrator, he helped oversee regulation in a broad variety of areas, including highway safety, health care, homeland security, immigration, energy, environmental protection, and education. This background allows him to describe OIRA and how it works—and how it can work better—from an on-the-ground perspective. Using real-world examples, Sunstein makes a compelling case for improving cost-benefit analysis, a longtime cornerstone of regulatory decision-making, and for taking account of variables that are hard to quantify, such as dignity and personal privacy. He also shows how regulatory decisions about health, safety, and life itself can benefit from behavioral and psychological research, including new findings about what scares us, and what does not. By better accounting for people’s fallibility, he argues, we can create regulation that is at once more human and more likely to achieve its goals.

In this highly readable synthesis of insights from law, policy, economics, and psychology, Sunstein breaks down the intricacies of the regulatory system and offers a new way of thinking about regulation that incorporates human dignity—and an insistent focus on the consequences of our choices.

“What happens when the world’s leading academic expert on regulation is plunked into the real world of government? . . . Valuing Life describes both how Sunstein’s ideas about regulation influenced his tenure in government, and how his experiences in government have influenced his ideas about regulation. This immensely rewarding book . . . should be read by everyone who cares about how our government works.” —Eric A. Posner, coauthor of Radical Markets

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Valuing Life (Cass R. Sunstein) Book Reviews 2024

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