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Abstract
In this Point/Counterpoint series of 4 articles in the new issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, Brian Mannix & Susan Dudley engage in a back-and-forth with Hunt Allcott & Cass Sunstein on the advisability of regulatory interventions based solely on "internalities," which Allcott & Sunstein define as "costs we impose on ourselves by taking actions that are not in our own best interest." In "The Limits of Irrationality as a Rationale for Regulation" and "Please Don't Regulate my Internalities," Mannix & Dudley warn that "allowing regulators to control consumers 'for their own good' – based on some deficiency in the consumers themselves rather than any failure in the marketplace – is to abandon any serious attempt to keep regulatory policy grounded in any objective notion of the public good." (Let us know if you cannot access these articles.)