Government risk regulation legitimately differs from individual decision-making: because governments operate population-wide, they can reasonably worry about one-in-a-hundred-thousand risks or less, whereas for most individuals most of the time such precautions make no sense because the associated anxiety is itself a cost (and an adverse health effect) that exceeds the precaution's benefit.

normativepending

Speaker

Cass Sunstein

Evidence Quote

probably it's good to distinguish between medical applications ... and government responses where governments because they're dealing on a population wide basis there probably are definitely legitimately concerned with one in a hundred thousand risk or less but for most of us most of the time it probably doesn't make ... any sense because of the ... associated anxiety itself a cost

Source

Cass Sunstein on Worst-case Scenarios 11/19/2007EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:17:23 AM

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