Illusory Losses

Cass R. Sunstein

Journal of Legal Studies, 2008, vol. 37, issue S2, pages S157-S194

Abstract: Recent empirical work demonstrates that healthy people make large mistakes when evaluating the welfare of those suffering from apparently serious health problems. Significant adverse conditions often inflict little or no hedonic damage-sometimes because people adapt to them, and sometimes because those who suffer many losses do not, after a time, focus on them. These findings have important implications for the legal system, especially for awards for pain, suffering, and hedonic losses, where juries are likely to overestimate the effect of injuries on happiness. There are two important qualifications. First, some injuries, such as chronic pain, do inflict significant hedonic losses because people cannot adapt and inevitably focus on them. Second, people may suffer capability loss without suffering hedonic loss, and that loss should be compensable. The legal system might be improved by civil damages guidelines to correct hedonic judgment errors by juries. Broader implications include the appropriate priorities for governments attempting to improve the welfare of their citizens. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..

Date: 2008

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/595675 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlstud:v:37:y:2008:i:s2:p:s157-s194

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Legal Studies is edited by Eric A. Posner and Thomas J. Miles

More articles in Journal of Legal Studies from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().