This essay explains how to use the calculus of consent framework to think more rigorously about self-governance, and applies this framework to the issue of evaluating federal regulatory agencies. Robust political economy is the idea that institutions should be designed to work well even under weak assumptions about decision-makers’ knowledge and benevolence. I show how the calculus of consent can be used to analyze both incentives and knowledge problems. The calculus is simultaneously a theory of self-governance and a tool for robust political economy analysis. Applying this framework to the case of public administration leads to the conclusion that private goods (such as medicine) tend to be over-regulated, public goods tend to be under-regulated (such as enabling too much pollution), and regulatory agencies tend to be over-centralized (and should in most cases either be replaced with certification markets or moved to state level).

中文翻译：

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自治、稳健的政治经济和公共管理改革

本文解释了如何使用同意计算框架来更严格地思考自治，并将该框架应用于评估联邦监管机构的问题。稳健的政治经济学是这样一种观点，即即使在对决策者的知识和仁慈假设薄弱的情况下，制度也应该设计得很好。我展示了如何使用同意计算来分析激励和知识问题。微积分既是一种自治理论，也是一种稳健的政治经济学分析工具。将这个框架应用于公共行政的案例得出的结论是，私人物品（如药品）往往受到过度监管，公共物品往往受到监管不足（如造成过多污染），