Matt Yglesias

14 Responses to “The Unknown OIRA”

1. mk Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

   In my view the biggest risk of the Sunstein worldview is that since the New Paternalism will be of the tolerable, “libertarian” kind, we will have more paternalism overall — i.e., more instances where policymakers believe they know better than individual decision-makers.

   It is important to note that paternalism is not just another word for “regulation”. Paternalism is a theory that motivates regulation, based on the idea that government policymakers have more or better information than individual actors.

   An alternate motivation for regulation is that government policymakers can solve a tragedy of the commons, prisoner’s dilemma, or other coordination problem. This is the “market failure” or externality argument for gov’t intervention. The externality argument does not require the Paternalist assumption that government knows better than individuals.

   My sense is that many people think “Libertarian Paternalism” translates into something like “Smart regulation.” But it doesn’t, and we should question the “paternalism” aspect just as much as we ever did. It should never ever be taken for granted that policymakers know what is best for individual actors better than the individuals do themselves (though it is presumably true in some specific cases).

2. Bob Oso Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

   I’ve got Sunstein on a cloudy day…

3. bdbd Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm

   I think mk is a bit too leery of the lib pat thing. I don’t think it means much more than framing choices in ways that leave the mark, I mean “individual actor,” with a full range of choices but which steer the actor (based on some common or average decision making traits) in a particular way. Standard is the (I’m wearing a tight hat) opt in/opt out 401k thing. This is based on the view that it would generally be good for individuals (and society) if participation in individual savings programs like 401k s took place.

   mk is right about the market failure/externality argument, and I don’t think there will be many regulatory applications for the lib paternalism tools. And even then, the application would probably be in the form of a traditional mandate by the govt on the regulated parties — such as, “companies with more than X employees and which offer a 401k plan must present new employees with the opt out situation rather than the opt in situation”

   I don’t think it takes an expert in lib paternalism to accomplish that. And in any case, such a regulation would be written at the Labor Dept, the IRS, the Commerce Dept or Treasury (whichever it is that would have jurisdiction over such things), not by OIRA.

4. AG Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

   Is your post accurate?
   I believe that the Office of E-Government & Information Technology oversees EGov; that is a separate entity from OIRA.
   See
   the OMB org chart

5. bdbd Says:
   January 9th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

   Ezra has good post on Sunstein http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=cass_sunstein_prepares_to_nudg

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