Cass R. Sunstein

Bio: Cass R. Sunstein is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supreme court & Constitution. The author has an hindex of 117, co-authored 787 publications receiving 57639 citations. Previous affiliations of Cass R. Sunstein include Brigham Young University & Indiana University.

Unanimity and Disagreement on the Supreme Court

Abstract: In 2013, the Supreme Court showed an unusually high rate of unanimous decisions – the highest, in fact, since 1940. This increase in unanimity, long favored by Chief Justice John Roberts, places a spotlight on an insufficiently appreciated fact: In 1941, the Supreme Court experienced a radical transformation. Almost immediately, it changed from a court that had operated by consensus, with very few separate opinions, into something closer to nine separate law offices, with a large number of dissenting opinions and concurrences, and with a significant rate of 5-4 divisions. Remarkably, the patterns established in the early 1800s continued until 1941, and the patterns established in the early 1940s have persisted to the present day. The transformation of 1941 appears to be attributable, in significant part, to the leadership style of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, who had no aversion to separate opinions and split decisions, and who was a frequent dissenter himself. The transformation offers general lessons not only about consensus and dissent within courts, but also about broader relationships among leaders, personnel, path dependence, prevailing norms, and the Court’s future. With respect to group behavior, it suggests the possibility of multiple equilibria: With small differences in leadership style and prevailing norms, the level of publicly expressed dissent can either grow or wither. With respect to the normative issues, the standard arguments in favor of a higher level of consensus within the Court – pointing to the values of legitimacy, stability, and minimalism – rest on fragile empirical foundations. It is true that a badly fractured Supreme Court can create uncertainty, and that internal divisions have costs as well as benefits, but there is no sufficient reason to hope for a return to the pre-1941 patterns.

The Regulatory Lookback

Abstract: Technocratic judgments can have a “cooling function.” An insistent focus on the facts, and on the likely consequences of policies, might soften political divisions and produce consensus. Within the federal government, cost-benefit analysis is a prominent example of the cooling function of technocracy. But when undertaken prospectively, such analysis is sometimes speculative and can be error-prone; in addition, circumstances change, often in unanticipated ways. For this reason, retrospective analysis, designed to identify the actual rather than expected effects, has significant advantages. The “regulatory lookback,” first initiated in 2011 and undertaken within and throughout the executive branch, has considerable promise for simplifying the regulatory state, reducing cumulative burdens, and increasing net benefits. It deserves a prominent place in the next generation of regulatory practice. Recent history also suggests that it might well soften political divisions.

Reviewing Agency Inaction after Heckler v. Chaney

Abstract: Of the many innovations in modern administrative law, the recognition of a private right to initiate administrative action may be the most important. In the last twenty years, courts have made substantial inroads on principles of prosecutorial discretion, which have traditionally shielded agency inaction from judicial review.' For example, courts have required agencies to promulgate rules,2 to issue regulatory standards,3 and to undertake enforcement activity.4 These rulings are part of a more general movement in publiclaw doctrine, which has abandoned the traditional focus on private autonomy in favor of an effort to ensure the identification and implementation of the values set out in the governing statute.5

The Value of a Statistical Life: Some Clarifications and Puzzles

Abstract: Many people have wondered why the US government conducts cost-benefit analysis with close reference to the value of a statistical life (VSL). It is helpful to answer that question by reference to the “Easy Cases,” in which those who benefit from regulatory protection must pay for it. In such cases, WTP is usually the right foundation for VSL, because beneficiaries are hardly helped by being forced to pay for regulatory protection that they believe not to be in their interests. In the Easy Cases, arguments from both welfare and autonomy support the use of WTP and VSL (with potentially important qualifications involving imperfect information and behavioral market failures). The analysis is less straightforward in harder cases, in which beneficiaries do not pay for all of the cost of what they receive (and may pay little of that cost). In such cases, arguments from welfare and autonomy might not lead in any clear direction. In the harder cases, regulation might be justified on welfare grounds even if the cost-benefit analysis (based on VSL) suggests that it is not. In principle, a direct inquiry into welfare (the master concept) would be preferable to use of cost-benefit analysis. In the harder cases, distributional considerations might also count in favor of proceeding (as prioritarianism suggests). But at the current time, direct inquiries into welfare consequences and into distributional effects are challenging in practice, and hence regulators should generally rely on cost-benefit analysis, making welfarist adjustments, or adjustments based on distributional considerations, only in compelling cases.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions.

Abstract: Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations. A systematic search of electronic databases and consultation with behaviour change experts were used to identify frameworks of behaviour change interventions. These were evaluated according to three criteria: comprehensiveness, coherence, and a clear link to an overarching model of behaviour. A new framework was developed to meet these criteria. The reliability with which it could be applied was examined in two domains of behaviour change: tobacco control and obesity. Nineteen frameworks were identified covering nine intervention functions and seven policy categories that could enable those interventions. None of the frameworks reviewed covered the full range of intervention functions or policies, and only a minority met the criteria of coherence or linkage to a model of behaviour. At the centre of a proposed new framework is a 'behaviour system' involving three essential conditions: capability, opportunity, and motivation (what we term the 'COM-B system'). This forms the hub of a 'behaviour change wheel' (BCW) around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. The BCW was used reliably to characterise interventions within the English Department of Health's 2010 tobacco control strategy and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence's guidance on reducing obesity. Interventions and policies to change behaviour can be usefully characterised by means of a BCW comprising: a 'behaviour system' at the hub, encircled by intervention functions and then by policy categories. Research is needed to establish how far the BCW can lead to more efficient design of effective interventions.

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

Risk as Feelings

Abstract: Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cognitive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate this information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive at decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, physiological, and other subfield of psychology, they show that emotional reactions to risky situations often drive behavior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of phenomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist terms.

A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality.

Abstract: Early studies of intuitive judgment and decision making conducted with the late Amos Tversky are reviewed in the context of two related concepts: an analysis of accessibility, the ease with which thoughts come to mind; a distinction between effortless intuition and deliberate reasoning. Intuitive thoughts, like percepts, are highly accessible. Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of nonextensional for extensional attributes. Variations in the accessibility of rules explain the occasional corrections of intuitive judgments. The study of biases is compatible with a view of intuitive thinking and decision making as generally skilled and successful.