Jason Schwartz, legal director at the Institute for Policy Integrity, authored a chapter in the new Handbook of Regulatory Impact Assessment. Schwartz’s chapter explores the varied applications and approaches to cost-benefit analysis in the context of regulatory impact assessment. He explains that form may follow function for many cost-benefit analyses, with the methodology changing slightly depending on the intended role for the analysis. Different ways of implementing cost-benefit analysis can be seen in practice and may be normatively desirable given the competing goals of cost-benefit requirements, which range from maximizing social welfare to enhancing democratic participation or political accountability in the rulemaking process.
