Cass Sunstein

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. On Oct. 9, Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago won the Nobel Prize for his extraordinary, world-transforming work in behavioral economics. In its press release, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences emphasized that Thaler demonstrated how nudging – or influencing people while fully maintaining freedom of choice – “may help people exercise better self-control when saving for a pension, as well in other contexts.” In terms of Thaler’s work on what human beings are actually like, that’s the tip of the iceberg – but it’s a good place to start...Some skeptics have raised concerns that nudging can be akin to manipulation. My research shows most people disagree – and welcome nudges that help them live better lives.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. When a company emits a ton of carbon dioxide, what damage has it caused, exactly? The answer is called the “social cost of carbon,” which may be the most important number that you’ve never heard of. If the number is large, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will be amply justified. If it is small, not so much. In proposing to scrap the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that the social cost of carbon is close to zero. Well, a bit higher than that, but not a lot.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Because economics is such a diverse field, with many distinguished thinkers, predicting the winner of the Nobel Prize in economics is notoriously difficult. But suppose that we narrowed the field, so as to focus on candidates who have not only made important theoretical contributions, but have also had a significant impact on the world, and affected the lives of numerous people?

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. I first heard about Richard Thaler in the 1980s, in a locker room at the University of Chicago. I had run into Steve Shavell, an economist at Harvard Law School, who asked me what I was working on. I mumbled some question I had, about whether people really behaved as rationally as economists said they do. Shavell responded without a lot of enthusiasm: “Oh, you should be reading Thaler, that guy from Cornell.” That afternoon, I looked up Thaler’s work. It was like a burst of sunlight, or the first chord of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.”

One of the best policies in America might just have the worst name: libertarian paternalism. Fortunately it's better known as 'nudge theory', and it has saved billions of dollars, huge numbers of lives, and subtly increased the nation's standard of living. How does it do all that? Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein explains that libertarian paternalism uses tested behavioral science to present people with choices that could improve their lives.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. The partisan gerrymandering case argued this week in the Supreme Court presents one of the most important, difficult and intriguing legal questions of the last quarter century. The constitutional issue in the case, coming out of Wisconsin, is whether and when courts should invalidate redistricting plans that are designed to give a strong advantage to one political party. In extreme cases, such plans are an obvious violation of the Constitution. The problem is that it’s not at all obvious how courts can police them.

Can Donald Trump be impeached? Cass Sunstein’s new book Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide carefully avoids addressing that question directly: Trump’s name is not mentioned in the text. But despite the effort to avoid current political controversies, the question of whether Trump can, or will, or should be impeached will be on the mind of every reader who picks up the book...The founders wanted a strong, active executive branch, but they feared that the president could become corrupt and trample on individual rights. So they devised a range of checks on executive power, including impeachment. Thus, Sunstein told me by email, “We the People have a way to protect ourselves.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. As Justice Neil Gorsuch starts his first full term on the Supreme Court, many people are cheering what they see as his conservatism, and many others are mourning it. But an investigation of his opinions as an appeals court judge offers a more complicated picture about his beliefs and his approach to the law. First, Gorsuch is fiercely protective of the independence of the judiciary -- and, in important respects, he is skeptical about executive power. Second, he is a bold thinker, willing to go in novel directions. Third, he is a fine writer.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In calling on NFL owners and fans to punish athletes who engage in political protests, President Donald Trump has become a Super Bowl champion of something he purports to oppose: political correctness. Apparently he’s fine with punishing dissenters, so long as he abhors what the dissenters are saying. In recent years, many Republicans and conservatives have complained that political correctness -- on university campuses, in workplaces and elsewhere -- can squelch minority opinions and enforce a left-wing orthodoxy. They’re right.

An essay by Cass Sunstein. The American colonies imported the idea of impeachment from England, where Edmund Burke called it the “great guardian of the purity of the Constitution.” But from 1750 to 1775 republican fervor was running rampant, and the colonists made the idea all their own. Long before shots were fired in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, colonial assemblies used impeachment as a homegrown weapon of republican government, rebuking the King’s agents for the abuse or misuse of power.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. The Trump administration has a real opportunity to deliver on its promise to streamline the regulatory state. That opportunity comes from the proposed elimination of more than 50 regulations imposed on the airline industry -- many of them designed to protect safety. Air safety has been a sensational success story. In the U.S., commercial accidents have been at very low levels for years.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. It is mid-September, and the Trump administration still has no website for its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. That is astonishing. It is also a disservice to the American people.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Judge Richard Posner, probably the world’s most influential legal thinker over the last half-century, retired from the federal bench on Saturday. If a Nobel Prize were to be given in law, he would be the first to receive it, solely on the basis of his academic contributions. Apart from that, he wrote more than 3,300 opinions as a federal judge. In countless areas, involving questions that grab headlines (like same-sex marriage) or highly technical matters, his analysis has proved enduring and defining.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein...Tali Sharot of the University College London has shown that for such questions, and many others, good news is more likely to alter people’s views than bad news. What does that have to do with contemporary political issues? Along with Sharot and other collaborators, I have been exploring exactly that question.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Obscured by the tumult surrounding President Donald Trump’s horrendous response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the White House managed to take a significant positive step this week: issuing an executive order designed to lower regulatory barriers to infrastructure projects, and to speed up and simplify the process for obtaining necessary permits and clearances.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Are there any limits on the president’s pardon power? The question, which has generated vigorous debate this summer, has new relevance in view of special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation into "any links and/or coordination between Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” No one can know where Mueller’s investigation is leading, but the possibility of criminal indictments cannot yet be ruled out.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Can a sitting president be prosecuted? Might Donald Trump, or any president, face the prospect of jail? A memorandum of law, written in 1998 but released last week, concludes that the answer is a qualified “yes.” The memorandum was written by Chapman University law professor Ronald Rotunda, who was then at the University of Illinois, for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed to investigate President Bill Clinton. Rotunda’s memorandum is learned, illuminating and impressively detailed. The issue is both tough and unsettled. But there’s a better answer: an unqualified “no.”

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. All over the world, private and public institutions have been adopting “nudges” -- interventions that preserve freedom of choice, but steer people in a particular direction. A GPS device nudges you. So does a reminder from your doctor, informing you that you have an appointment next Wednesday; an automatic enrollment policy from your employer, defaulting you into a 401(k) plan; and a calorie label at fast-food restaurants, telling you that a cheeseburger won’t be great for your waistline. Recent evidence demonstrates that nudges can be amazingly effective -- far more so, per dollar spent, than other tools, such as economic incentives. But a big question remains: Across different nations, do nudges have the same impact? Here’s a cautionary note.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. The Trump administration has repeatedly vowed to reduce the level of federal regulation. Naomi Rao, who was confirmed this week as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will play a central role in that effort. In her first year, Rao, who was a law professor at George Mason University, should consider reviving a creative idea pioneered in the George W. Bush administration -- one that could enlist OIRA's expertise to spur cost-saving deregulation, an administration priority, as well as to promote life-saving regulatory initiatives.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. For leaders as well as friends, spouses and colleagues, grace is a precious characteristic. Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump’s policy choices, our nation has never had a president more lacking in grace. Whether or not Abraham Lincoln was the greatest American president, he was certainly its most gracious...On the eve of victory, Lincoln avoided triumphalism or crowing. Instead he rejected malice and called for charity. He backed his firmness with both humility (“as God gives us to see the right”) and tenderness (“to care for him who shall have borne the battle”).