Choosing a valuation metric smuggles in a contested baseline entitlement

Evidence

In this passage— in the very context of defending the “objective” credentials of positive economics— Stavins commits “one of the gravest errors in economics,” that of confusing willingnesstopay and willingnesstoaccept valuation criteria. The choice between these two valuation approaches can radically affect costbenefi tanalysis results, since the choice essentially reduces to a normative judgment regarding which actor should be initially endowed with a legal entitlement. Valuations may differ dramatically depending on whether one must pay to obtain an entitlement or instead can demand an amount of monetary compensation adequate to compel voluntary relinquishment of the entitlement. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 585

Categorization

• SEED: The WTP-vs-WTA choice as a hidden normative baseline is a clean exhibit of Kysar’s whole thesis — usable as the concrete anchor in a lecture or article on why regulatory technique is never value-neutral.
• XREF: connects to: Even ideal Pareto optimality smuggles in contested normative baselines rather than objectivity. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 276; Pricing option value masks the ethical nature of grave collective choices — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 249; Ethical persuasion frameworks smuggle in unexamined standards of what counts as good — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 411

Broader Connections

• Pricing option value masks the ethical nature of grave collective choices #expands (0.85) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 249
• Ethical persuasion frameworks smuggle in unexamined standards of what counts as good #expands (0.80) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 411