From the WSJ:
White House regulatory chief Cass Sunstein is leaving his post this month to return to Harvard Law School, officials said Friday.
Mr. Sunstein has long been an advocate of behavorial economics in setting policy, the notion that people will respond to incentives, and has argued for restraint in government regulations. As such, he was met with skepticism and opposition by some liberals when he was chosen at the start of the Obama administration.
As administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, his formal title, Mr. Sunstein led an effort to look back at existing regulations with an eye toward killing those that are no longer needed or cost effective. The White House estimates that effort has already produced $10 billion in savings over five years, with more to come.
“Cass has shown that it is possible to support economic growth without sacrificing health, safety and the environment,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. He said these reforms and “his tenacious promotion of cost-benefit analysis,” will “benefit Americans for years to come.”
Even so, conservatives point to sweeping new regulations for the financial sector and health care in arguing that the administration has increased the regulatory burden on businesses.
Mr. Sunstein will depart this month for Harvard, where he will rejoin the law school faculty as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy.
It will be interesting to hear, once Professor Sunstein returns to an academic setting, his views on whether and in what instances — aside from the CFPB — behavioral economics actually had much impact on the formation of regulatory policy within the Administration.
