Quack Policy: Abusing Science in the Cause of Paternalism (Hobart Papers (Paperback)) - Softcover

Jamie Whyte

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0255366736 ISBN 13: 9780255366731

Publisher: iea, 2013

Synopsis

Politicians and lobbyists who promote new regulations and taxes typically claim to have science on their side. Scientific evidence shows that the actions they wish to discourage are harmful and that government intervention would reduce this harm. Yet much evidence-based policy is grounded on poor scientific reasoning and even worse economics. Recent examples of flawed evidence-based policy include the proposal to introduce a minimum alcohol price, the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and attempts to increase gross national happiness. A frequent error is to ignore the costs resulting from the policy. For example, minimum alcohol price plans do not consider the welfare losses associated with reduced consumption among recreational drinkers. The benefits of alcohol consumption, and hence the cost of reducing it, are simply ignored in the analysis. Evidence-based policy typically also fails to account for substitution effects, such as the way a minimum alcohol price would encourage consumers to purchase drinks in the shadow economy or adopt intoxicating alternatives to alcohol. Expert practitioners in one field may be quite ignorant of other fields, knowing little about either their theory or methods. Expertise slippage is the tendency to defer to experts on matters which fall outside their area of expertise. Climate scientists, for example, are experts on hardly any of the issues that determine which climate polices are best. They have no special knowledge of how businesses will respond to taxes or the relative welfare costs of reduced growth. Paternalist policies promoted by experts and politicians show contempt for the actual preferences of the general public. People are forced to live according to values that they reject. For example, supporters of happiness policy believe the state should coerce people to act against their preferences in ways that policymakers think will increase their wellbeing.

About this title

About the Author

Jamie Whyte is a management consultant, a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and a senior fellow of the Adam Smith Institute. He is the author of "Crimes Against Logic" and a frequent contributor to various newspapers, including the "Times of London" and the "Wall Street Journal."

Edition details

• Publisher: iea
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0255366736
• ISBN 13: 9780255366731
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1