Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness » (Updated)

Richard H. Thaler is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and the director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

Cass R. Sunstein is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

A groundbreaking discussion of how we can apply the new science of choice architecture to nudge people toward decisions that will improve their lives by making them healthier, wealthier, and more free

The New York Times - Benjamin M. Friedman

Yes, there is such a thing as common sense—and thank goodness for that. At least that's this reader's reaction to Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge, an engaging and insightful tour through the evidence that most human beings don't make decisions in the way often characterized (some would say caricatured) in elementary economics textbooks, along with a rich array of suggestions for enabling many of us to make better choices, both for ourselves and for society.

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction I

Part I Humans and Econs

1 Biases and Blunders 17

2 Resisting Temptation 40

3 Following the Herd 53

4 When Do We Need a Nudge? 74

5 Choice Architecture 83

Part II Money

6 Save More Tomorrow 105

7 Naïet;ve Investing 120

8 Credit Markets 134

9 Privatizing Social Security: Smorgasbord Style 147

Part III Health

10 Prescription Drugs: Part D for Daunting 161

11 How to Increase Organ Donations 177

12 Saving the Planet 185

Part IV Freedom

13 Improving School Choices 201

14 Should Patients Be Forced to Buy Lottery Tickets? 209

15 Privatizing Marriage 217

Part V Extensions and Objections

16 A Dozen Nudges 231

17 Objections 239

18 The Real Third Way 255

19 Bonus Chapter: Twenty More Nudges 257

Postscript: November 2008 269

Notes 272

Bibliography 281

Index 303