A Happiness Approach to Cost-Benefit Analysis

Subjective well-being (SWB) surveys ask respondents to quantify their overall or momentary happiness or life-satisfaction, or pose similar questions about other aspects of respondents\u27 mental states. A large empirical literature in economics and psychology has grown up around such surveys. Increasingly, too, scholars have advanced the normative proposal that SWB surveys be used for policymaking—for example, by using survey results to calculate monetary equivalents for nonmarket goods (to be incorporated in cost-benefit analysis), or to calculate gross national happiness. This Article skeptically evaluates the policy role of SWB data. It is critical to distinguish between (1) using SWB surveys as evidence of preference utility versus (2) using them as evidence of experience utility. Preference utility is a measure of the extent to which someone has realized her preferences; experience utility, a measure of the quality of someone\u27s mental states. The two are quite different because individuals can have preferences regarding non-mental occurrences. Having drawn this distinction, the Article then argues, first, that SWB surveys are poor evidence of preference utility—given problems of preference and scale heterogeneity, as well as other difficulties. Stated-preference surveys are a much better survey format for eliciting preference utility. Second, in considering SWB surveys as an experience-utility measure, we should recognize that experientialism about well-being—the view that well-being is simply a matter of good experiences—is highly controversial. More plausibly, an experience-utility measure might be seen as an indicator of one aspect of well-being. However, even constructing this weak experience-utility measure is not straightforward—as the Article demonstrates by discussing Daniel Kahneman\u27s detailed proposal for such a metric

Arbitrator Liability: Reconciling Arbitration and Mandatory Rules

In this Article, Professor Guzman resolves the tension that exists between mandatory legal rules and the widespread use of arbitration. In recent years, U. S. courts have expanded the range of enforceable arbitration agreements to include agreements that cover areas of law previously thought to be within the exclusive domain of courts. Among the disputes that are now deemed arbitrable are those that implicate mandatory rules such as securities and antitrust laws. Under current law, the willingness of courts to enforce arbitration agreements and to uphold the resulting arbitral awards with minimal judicial review makes it possible for the parties to a transaction to avoid mandatory rules of law. Until now, it has generally been believed that the legal system must either restrict the use of arbitration or permit arbitration and accept that doing so turns all mandatory rules into default rules. This Article proposes a mechanism that permits the continued use of arbitration without abandoning the mandatory nature of legal rules. The recommended approach, called arbitrator liability, allows the losing party in an arbitration to sue the arbitrator on the ground that a mandatory rule was ignored. Under existing legal rules, arbitrators have an incentive to ignore mandatory rules of law in favor of the contractual terms agreed to by the parties. Arbitrator liability gives arbitrators an incentive to apply mandatory rules of law. Giving proper incentives to arbitrators will ensure that mandatory rules are enforced, thereby eliminating the incentive for the parties to draft arbitration agreements intended to avoid those rules. The benefits of arbitration can be retained without sacrificing the ability of lawmakers to adopt mandatory rules

Three new species of Paragnorimus Becker from Central America (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae: Trichiini) with a redefinition of the genus

Three new species of Paragnorimus Becker are described: Paragnorimus atratus n. sp. from Guatemala, P. hondurensis n. sp. from Honduras and Nicaragua, and P. howdeni n. sp. from Guatemala. Based on the overlapping characters of these new species, the genus Peltotrichius Howden is placed in synonymy with Paragnorimus. Paragnorimus is given a broader definition to encompass the new species and the two species formerly placed in the genus Peltotrichius