Directory

Matthew Adler

Books

• Risk, Death and Well-Being: The Ethical Foundations of Fatality Risk Regulation (Oxford University Press, under contract)

• Prioritarianism in Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2022) (co-edited with Ole F. Norheim)

• Measuring Social Welfare: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2019) 

• The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2016) (co-edited with Marc Fleurbaey)

• Well-Being and Fair Distribution: Beyond Cost Benefit Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2012) 
• The Rule of Recognition and the U.S. Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2009) (co-edited with Kenneth Himma)
• New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Harvard University Press, 2006) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic and Philosophical Perspectives (University of Chicago Press, 2000) (co-edited with Eric Posner)  

Articles and Book Chapters

• Narrowly Person-Affecting Axiology: A Reconsideration in Economics and Philosophy (2024)

• Social Welfare Functions and Health Policy: A New Approach in Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis (2024)

• How to Balance Lives and Livelihood, in Pandemic Ethics (Julian Savulescu ed., Oxford University Press, 2023) (co-authored with Richard Bradley, Maddalena Ferranna, Marc Fleurbaey, James Hammitt, and Alex Voorhoeve)

• Age and the Social Value of Risk Reduction: Three Perspectives, in Aging without Ageism: Conceptual Puzzles and Policy Proposals (Greg Bognar and Alex Gosseries eds., Oxford University Press, 2023)

• Age and the Value of Life, in The Routledge Handbook of the Economics of Ageing (David E. Bloom, Alfonso Sousa-Poza, and Uwe Sunde eds., forthcoming) (co-authored with Maddalena Ferranna and James Hammitt)

• Cost-Benefit Analysis, in Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory (Richard Bellamy and Jeff King eds., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

• "Better the Devil You Know": Are Stated Preferences over Health and Happiness Determined by How Happy and Healthy People Are?, 303 Social Science and Medicine 115015 (2022) (co-authored with Paul Dolan, Amanda Henwood, and Georgios Kavetsos)

• Claims Across Outcomes and Population Ethics, in The Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics 320 (Gustaf Arrhenius, Krister Bykvist, Tim Campbell and Elizabeth Finneron-Burns eds., Oxford University Press, 2022)

• Theory of Prioritarianism, in Prioritarianism in Practice 37 (Matthew Adler and Ole Norheim eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022)

• Well-being Measurement, in Prioritarianism in Practice 128 (Matthew Adler and Ole Norheim eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022) (co-authored with Koen Decancq)

• The Social Welfare Function: A New Tool for Regulatory Policy Analysis, in Theories of Choice: The Social Science and the Law of Decision Making 155 (Stefan Grundmann and Philipp Hacker eds., Oxford University Press, 2021)

• Fair Innings? The Utilitarian and Prioritarian Value of Risk Reduction over a Whole Lifetime, 75 Journal of Health Economics 102412 (2021) (co-authored with Maddalena Ferranna, James Hammitt, and Nicolas Treich)

• Quality Adjusted Life Years Based on Health and Consumption: A Summary Wellbeing Measure for Cross-Sectoral Economic Evaluation, 30 Health Economics 70 (2021) (co-authored with Richard Cookson, Ieva Skarda, Owen Cotton-Barrett, Miqdad Asaria, and Toby Ord)

• What Should We Spend to Save Lives in a Pandemic? A Critique of the Value of Statistical Life, 33 Covid Economics 1-45 (2020)

• Extended Preferences and the Valuation of Health, in Measuring the Global Burden of Disease: Philosophical Dimensions (Nir Eyal et al. eds., Oxford University Press, 2020)

• Years of Good Life Based on Consumption and Health: A Practical Well-Being Metric for Economic Evaluation, in ibid. (co-authored with Richard Cookson, Owen Cotton-Barrett, Miqdad Asaria, and Toby Ord)

• Social Welfare Functions, in Global Health Priority-Setting: Beyond Cost-Effectiveness 123 (Ole F. Norheim, Ezekiel Emanuel, and Jospeh Millum eds., Oxford University Press, 2019)

• Cost-Benefit Analysis and Social Welfare Functions, in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics (Mark D. White ed., Oxford University Press, 2019)

• Prioritarianism: A Response to Critics, in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (2019) (co-authored with Nils Holtug) 

• The Contribution of the Social Sciences to Policy and Institutional Change, in Rethinking Society for the 21st Century: Report of the International Panel on Social Progress, vol 3: 847 (Cambridge University Press, 2018) (coordinating lead chapter author, with Helga Nowotny)

• Utilitarianism, Prioritarianism, and Climate Change: A Brief Introduction, in Climate Change and its Impacts: Risks and Inequalities 69 (Robert McKim, Colleen Murphy, and Paolo Gardoni, eds., Springer, 2018) 

• Prioritarianism: Room for Desert? 30 Utilitas 172 (2018)

• Priority for the Worse Off and the Social Cost of Carbon, 7 Nature Climate Change 443 (co-authored with David Anthoff, Valentina Bosetti, Greg Garner, Klaus Keller, and Nicolas Treich) (2017)

• Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey, 139 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 60 (2017) (co-authored with Paul Dolan and Georgios Kavetsos)

• Utilitarianism, Prioritarianism, and Intergenerational Equity: A Cake Eating Model, 87 Mathematical Social Sciences 94 (2017) (co-authored with Nicolas Treich)

• Benefit-Cost Analysis and Distributional Weights: An Overview, 10 Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 264 (2016)

• Behavioral Economics, Happiness Surveys, and Public Policy, 7 Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis 196 (2016)

• Extended Preferences, in The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy 476 (Matthew Adler and Marc Fleurbaey eds., Oxford University Press, 2016)

• Aggregating Moral Preferences, 32 Economics and Philosophy 283 (2016)

• Prioritarianism and Climate Change, 62 Environmental and Resource Economics 279 (2015) (co-authored with Nicolas Treich)
• The Ethical Value of Risk Reduction: Utilitarianism, Prioritarianism, and Cost-Benefit Analysis, in Ethics and Risk Management 9 (Lina Svedin ed., Information Age Publishing, 2015)
• Welfarism, Equity, and the Choice between Statistical and Identified Victims, in Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective 53 (I. Glenn Cohen, Norman Daniels, and Nir Eyal eds., Oxford University Press, 2015)
• Value and Cost-Benefit Analysis, in Oxford Handbook of Value Theory 317 (Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson eds., Oxford University Press, 2015)
• Equity by the Numbers: Measuring Poverty, Inequality, and Injustice, 66 Alabama Law Review 551-607 (2015) (based on my Meador Lecture, delivered April 2014)
• Extended Preferences and Interpersonal Comparisons: A New Account, 30 Economics & Philosophy 123-162 (2014)
• The Social Value of Mortality Risk Reduction: VSL vs. the Social Welfare Function Approach, 35 Journal of Health Economics 82-93 (2014) (co-authored with James Hammitt and Nicolas Treich)
• Happiness, Health and Leisure: Valuing the Nonconsumption Impacts of Unemployment, in Does Regulation Kill Jobs? 150-169 (Cary Coglianese et al. eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
• Happiness Surveys and Public Policy: What's the Use?, 62 Duke Law Journal 1509-1601 (2013)
• Interpretive Contestation and Legal Correctness, 53 William & Mary Law Review 1115-1136 (2012) (based on my Cutler Lecture)
• Regulatory Theory, in A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory 590-606 (Dennis Paterson ed., 2d ed., Cambridge University Press, 2010) 
• Future Generations: A Prioritarian View, 77 George Washington Law Review 1478-1520 (2009) (contribution to a symposium on future generations)
• Social Facts, Constitutional Interpretation, and the Rule of Recognition, in The Rule of Recognition and the U.S. Constitution 193 (Matthew D. Adler and Kenneth Einar Himma eds., Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Happiness Research and Cost-Benefit Analysis, 37 Journal of Legal Studies S253-S292 (2008) (reprinted in Law and Happiness (Eric Posner & Cass Sunstein eds., 2010) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner))
• Bounded Rationality and Legal Scholarship, in Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics 137 (Mark D. White ed., Cambridge University Press, 2009)
• Risk Equity: A New Proposal, 32 Harvard Environmental Law Review 1-47 (2008)
• Inequality and Uncertainty: Theory and Legal Applications, 155 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 279-377 (2006) (co-authored with Chris William Sanchirico)
• Policy Analysis for Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, 56 Duke Law Journal 1 (2006) (Contribution to symposium on Hurricane Katrina)
• Welfare Polls: A Synthesis, 81 New York University Law Review 1875-1970 (2006)
• Constitutional Fidelity, the Rule of Recognition, and the Communitarian Turn in Contemporary Positivism, 75 Fordham Law Review 1671-1696 (2006) (contribution to symposium on the internal point of view)
• Popular Constitutionalism and the Rule of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, 100 Northwestern University Law Review 719-806 (2006)
• QALYs and Policy Evaluation: A New Perspective, 6 Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics 1-92 (2006)
• Equity Analysis and Natural Hazards Policy, in On Risk and Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina 129 (Ronald Daniels et al. eds., 2006)
• Justification, Legitimacy, and Administrative Governance, Issues in Legal Scholarship (The Reformation of American Administrative Law) (2005)
• Against 'Individual Risk': A Sympathetic Critique of Risk Assessment, 153 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1122-1250 (2005)
• Fear Assessment: Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Pricing of Fear and Anxiety, 79 Chicago-Kent Law Review 977-1053 (2004) (condensed version published at, 29 Administrative & Regulatory Law News 4-7 (Summer 2004))
• Constitutional Existence Conditions and Judicial Review, 89 Virginia Law Review 1105-1202 (2003) (co-authored with Michael C. Dorf)
• Legal Transitions: Some Welfarist Remarks, 13 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 5-28 (2003) (contribution to symposium on legal transitions)
• Risk, Death and Harm: The Normative Foundations of Risk Regulation, 87 Minnesota Law Review 1293-1445 (2003)
• Does the Constitution Require (Basic or Strengthened) Public Rationality?, in Linking Law and Political Science (Christoph Engel & Adrienne Heritier eds., 2003)
• The Puzzle of Ex Ante Efficiency: Does Rational Approvability have Moral Weight?, 151 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 707 (2003)
• State Sovereignty and the Anti-Commandeering Cases, 574 Annals of the American Academy for Political and Social Science 158 (March 2001)
• Rights, Rules and the Structure of Constitutional Adjudication: A Response to Professor Fallon, 113 Harvard Law Review 1371-1420 (2000)
• Beyond Efficiency and Procedure: A Welfarist Theory of Regulation, 28 Florida State University Law Review 241-338 (2000) (contribution to symposium on regulatory theory, with response by Rob Atkinson and Dan Rodriguez)
• Personal Rights and Rule-Dependence: Can the Two Coexist?, 6 Legal Theory 337-389 (2000)
• Expressive Theories of Law: A Skeptical Overview, 148 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1363-1501 (2000) (with a response by Elizabeth Anderson and Richard Pildes)
• Implementing Cost-Benefit Analysis When Preferences Are Distorted, 29 Journal of Legal Studies 1105 (2000) (republished in Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic and Philosophical Perspectives (Matthew D. Alder & Eric A. Posner eds., 2001) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner)
• Rethinking Cost-Benefit Analysis, 109 Yale Law Journal 165-247 (1999) (excerpted in Jurisprudence: Classical and Contemporary (Robert Hayman et al., 2d ed., 2002)) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner)
• The New Etiquette of Federalism: New York, Printz and Yeskey, 1998 Supreme Court Review 71-143 (co-authored with Seth F. Kreimer)
• Rights Against Rules: The Moral Structure of American Constitutional Law, 97 Michigan Law Review 1-173 (1998)
• Incommensurability and Cost-Benefit Analysis, 146 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1371-1418 (1998)
• Judicial Restraint in the Administrative State: Beyond the Countermajoritarian Difficulty, 145 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 759-892 (1997)
• What States Owe Outsiders, 20 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 391-438 (1993)

Works in Progress

• Ex-Post Approaches to Prioritarianism and Sufficientarianism (2023)
• Assessing the Distribution of Impacts in Global Benefit-Cost Analysis: Supplement (2017) (supplement to working paper for Gates Foundation project on Benefit-Cost Analysis Reference Case Guidance) 
• A Better Calculus for Regulators: From Cost-Benefit Analysis to the Social Welfare Function (2017) 
• Justice, Claims and Prioritarianism: Room for Desert? (2016) 
• Cost-Benefit Analysis and Distributional Weights: An Overview (2013)
• The Pigou-Dalton Principle and the Structure of Distributive Justice (May 01, 2013)
• Harsanyi 2.0 (2011)
• Introducing a 'Different Lives' Approach to the Valuation of Health and Well-Being (2008) (University of Pennsylvania Law School, Institute for Law & Economics, Research Paper No. 08-05, 2008) (co-authored with Paul Dolan)
• Well-Being, Inequality and Time: The Time-Slice Problem and its Policy Implications, 2007 7-17 (University of Pennsylvania Law School, Institute for Law & Economics, Research Paper No. 07-17, 2007)
• Why De Minimis?, 2007 7-12 (University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Law & Economics, Research Paper No. 07-12, 2007)

Comments, Book Reviews, Introductions, and Other Short Publications

• Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values (book review), 29 European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 569 (2022)

• Introduction, in Prioritarianism in Practice (Matthew Adler and Ole Norheim eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022) (co-authored with Ole Norheim)

• Interview of Allan Gibbard (with John Weymark), in Conversations on Social Choice and Welfare 1:171 (Marc Fleurbaey and Maurice Salles eds., Springer, 2021)

• Assessing the Well-Being Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Three Policy Types: Suppression, Control, and Uncontrolled Spread (T20 Policy Brief; Task Force 4: Social Cohesion and the State) (2020) (co-authored with Richard Bradley, Maddalena Ferranna, Marc Fleurbaey, and James Hammitt)

• The Smooth Value of Lumpy Goods (commentary on Lee Fennell, Slices and Lumps), University of Chicago Law Review Online (2020)

• In Pursuit of Social Progress and Response, 34 Economics and Philosophy 443, 477 (2018) (co-authored with Marc Fleurbaey)

• Introduction, in The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy 1 (Oxford University Press 2016) (co-edited with Marc Fleurbaey)

• Happiness and the Law (book review), 53 Journal of Economic Literature 188 (2015)
• Well-Being Thresholds and Moral Philosophy (book review of The Basic Minimum), 12 Journal of Moral Philosophy 1 (2015)
• Using and Improving the Social Cost of Carbon, 346 Science 1189-1190 (5 December 2014) (co-authored with William Pizer, Joseph Aldy, David Anthoff, Maureen Cropper, Kenneth Gillingham, Michael Greenstone, Brian Murray, Richard Newell, Richard Richels, Arden Rowell, Stephanie Waldhoff, Jonathan Wiener)
• A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare (book review), 4 Oeconomica: History, Methodology, Philosophy 77 (2014)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences (Byron Kaldis ed., Sage, 2013)
• Imposing Values (book review), 120 Ethics 831 (2010)
• Contingent Valuation Studies and Health Policy, 5 Health Economics, Policy and Law 123 (2010)
• Introduction, in The Rule of Recognition and the U.S. Constitution xiii (Matthew D. Adler & Kenneth Einar Himma eds., Oxford University Press, 2009) (co-authored with Kenneth Einar Himma)
• New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis, 3 Regulation & Governance 72-83 (2009) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner)
• On (Moral) Philosophy and American Legal Scholarship, in On Philosophy in American Law 114-121 (Jay Mootz ed., Cambridge University Press, 2009)
• Corrective Justice and Liability for Global Warming, 155 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1859-1867 (2007)
• Policy Analysis for Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons from Environmental Policy Analysis, 32 Administrative and Regulatory Law News 11 (2007)
• Economic Growth and the Interests of Future (and Past and Present) Generations: A Comment on Tyler Cowen, 74 University of Chicago Law Review 41-49 (2007)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis: New Foundations, 42 Legislacao: Cadernos de Ciencia de Legislacao 63 (2006) (Proceedings of the Conference on Legal Evaluation, Lisbon, January 2005)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis, in 1 Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives 305 (David S. Clark ed., Sage Publications, 2007)
• Introduction to Conference Report on White House Review of Regulation (report of conference on OIRA review held at Penn Law in December 2006, introduction co-authored with Cary Coglianese)
• Cognitivism, Controversy and Moral Heuristics, 28 Behavioral & Brain Sciences 542-543 (2005)
• Book Review, 115 Ethics 824-828 (2005) (reviewing Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare (2002))
• Incorporating Fear Assessment into Cost-Benefit Analysis, 29 Administrative and Regulatory Law News 4 (2004)
• Cost-Benefit Analysis, Static Efficiency, and the Goals of Environmental Law, 31 Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 591-605 (2004)
• Introduction to Symposium, Preferences and Rational Choice: New Perspectives and Legal Implications, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 707-715 (2003) (co-authored with Claire Finkelstein and Peter Huang)
• Book Review, Notre Dame Philosophical Review: An Electronic Journal (2002) (reviewing Rights, Wrongs and Responsibilities (Matthew H. Kramer ed., 2001))
• The Positive Political Theory of Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Comment on Johnston, 150 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1429-1451 (2002)
• Risk, Death and Time: A Comment on Judge Williams' Defense of Cost-Benefit Analysis, 53 Administrative Law Review 271-287 (2001)
• Expression and Appearance: A Comment on Hellman, 60 Maryland Law Review 688-712 (2001)
• Linguistic Meaning, Nonlinguistic "Expression," and the Multiple Variants of Expressivism: A Reply to Professors Anderson and Pildes, 148 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1577-1594 (2000)
• Rights and Rules: An Overview, 6 Legal Theory 241-251 (Volker D. Franke & Robin Dorff eds., 2000) (co-authored with Michael C. Dorf)
• Introduction, to Cost-Benefit Analysis, 29 Journal of Legal Studies 837-842 (2000) (co-authored with Eric A. Posner)
• Book Review, 20 Philosophy in Review 142-145 (2000) (reviewing Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory (1999))
• Book Review, 19 Philosophy in Review 168-171 (1999) (reviewing Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason (Ruth Chang ed., 1997))
• Can Constitutional Borrowing be Justified? A Comment on Tushnet, 1 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 350-357 (1998)
• Law and Incommensurability: Introduction, 146 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1169-1184 (1998)