Dr Eric Crampton: Be careful what you wish for – new cost-benefit analysis paves paradise

Sometimes, policy work is like wishing on a cursed wish-granting monkey’s paw. Like the one in the old Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode, later parodied in The Simpsons. Wish on the paw, one of the paw’s extended fingers will curl, and your wish will come true.

But not in the way you’d wanted. You may even wish that you’d never wished at all.