Focus on Fairness, Efficiency, and the Law: Response. An Integration of Equity and Efficiency

Swygert and Yanes, in an article in this issue of the Washington Law Review, suggest a means to achieve this integration. In this Article, I first discuss the shortcomings of the approach suggested by Swygert and Yanes. Next, I suggest a more practical approach for integrating efficiency and equity that relies on benefit cost analysis. Finally, I consider some of the cases to which Swygert and Yanes apply their analysis.

The fundamental shortcoming of the Swygert and Yanes approach is that it offers little for deciding practical cases. The authors combine two abstract and heuristic proposals and quite naturally end up with an abstract approach that is uncertain in its application. In this response, I show that benefit cost analysis, a well-established technique for determining whether a decision is efficient, is also applicable to equity considerations. Indeed, I show that the distinction between efficiency and equity is artificial.

The expanded efficiency approach I suggest remedies the defects in the Swygert and Yanes approach and offers a more practical alternative for integrating efficiency and equity.