Sunstein's Ideas at Work in US Policy

A look at Cass Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the White House Office of Management and Budget. Created by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to reduce paperwork and weigh the usefulness of new regulations, the office is the final clearinghouse for rules written by agencies government-wide. The office became an antiregulatory hub under President Ronald Reagan but faded in influence under President Bill Clinton. It regained its punch within the bureaucracy under President George W. Bush. President Obama now wants to reshape the office to dovetail with Mr. Sunstein's pioneering work in the school of "behavioral economics." The idea behind this approach is that rules work better if they are attuned to people's habits and predilections rather than simply to a desired outcome. In a significant, but little noticed, memo written 10 days after taking office, President Obama ordered up a rewrite of how OIRA goes about its work, the first such revision since 1993. "Far more is now known about regulation -- not only when it is justified, but also what works and what does not," the president wrote. A regulatory review would make use of new tools and would "clarify the role of the behavioral sciences in formulating regulatory policy."