Regulamentação e "enviesamentos cognitivos"

Not All Biases Are Created Equal, por "The Streetwise Professor":

Matt Ridley (...) reminds us that regulators can have cognitive biases too.

This is a pretty unexceptional point. But it raises the question. If both individual decision makers in markets and regulators are both subject to cognitive biases, isn’t it kind of a push?

I say no. Decisively no. For two reasons.

First, the feedback mechanisms are different. Individual decision makers are subject to market feedback, and this feedback is often quick and ruthless. For instance, an individual trader who uses a biased decision rule is likely to lose money, and often a lot of money. (...)

In contrast, politicians and regulators face very weak feedback, and often no feedback or perverse feedback. (...) [A] regulator that makes a boneheaded decision is largely immune from being fired, and may well be working for Goldman by the time the bad consequences of his or her decision comes to light.

Second, regulatory and legislative mistakes are often systemic in their effects, whereas individual decision errors are less likely to be so.  A regulatory or legislative mistake affects everybody subject to the regulation or law. (...)

In contrast, although herding behavior (correlated cognitive biases) can occur, and may contribute to bubbles and runs and other undesirable outcomes, a lot of individual biases tend to cancel out. (...)

In other words, laws and regulations tend to put all the eggs in one basket.

Eu acho que, pelo menos enquanto existir Estado e capitalismo, há muito boas razões para o Estado interferir com "o livre funcionamento dos mercado" (redistribuição da riqueza, comcorrência imperfeita, etc); mas a razão "proteger os individuos dos seus próprios enviesamentos cognitivos" é uma muito má razão.