Commentary: Shooting on an Arrow, and the Downplay of Regulatory Economics

Abstract

This brief review discussion raises additional regulatory ideas to those offered by 2017 Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler, and philosophically and pragmatically argues that his winning of the award was more political than economic, especially in terms of the legislation offered that followed. The article then uses work from other economists, such as Coase, and Friedman, and Arrow, to theorize that in total there are at least four different categories of regulation currently identified. And, humans have yet to invent or recognize all possible avenues for using “libertarian paternalism,” Thaler’s neologism for social regulation. The article offers a number of real world, contemporary examples falling under such a philosophical umbrella, while discussing their possible benefits and short-comings. The paper overall argues that human society on the whole has been slow to create more solutions for unwanted or incentivized economic behavior, in the application of such philosophical theories to policies by regulators.