Cost–Benefit Analysis

Authors

• Matthew D. Adler, Duke Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Chapter of Book

Publication Date

2025

Keywords

cost-benefit analysis, CBA, welfarism, constitutional rights, constitutional structure, rational basis review, tiers of scrutiny

Abstract

This chapter will address the place of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) in constitutional law, by way of a case study. I’ll describe, and puzzle over, CBA’s absence from most U.S. constitutional doctrines, notwithstanding its major role in U.S. administrative law. The general questions that I seek to illuminate are by no means limited to the U.S. How might CBA figure within the tests that constitutional courts use to adjudicate alleged violations of constitutional rights? How might it serve to determine the structure of constitutional institutions? Would it be justified for CBA to play these doctrinal roles? But these general questions are fruitfully addressed in the context of a specific legal system – here, the U.S. legal system.

Comments

© Cambridge University Press 2025. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use.

Citation

Matthew D. Adler, Cost-Benefit Analysis, in The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory 470-490 (Richard Bellamy & Jeff King eds., 2025)