Rethinking Nudge: Not One But Three Concepts *

Philippe Mongin and Mikaël Cozic ()
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Mikaël Cozic: LIS - Lettres, Idées, Savoirs - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12

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Abstract: Nudge is a concept of policy intervention that originates in Thaler and Sunstein's (2008) popular eponymous book. Following their own hints, we distinguish three properties of nudge interventions: they redirect individual choices by only slightly altering choice conditions (here nudge 1), they use rationality failures instrumentally (here nudge 2), and they alleviate the unfavourable effects of these failures (here nudge 3). We explore each property in semantic detail and show that no entailment relation holds between them. This calls into question the theoretical unity of nudge, as intended by Thaler and Sunstein and most followers. We eventually recommend pursuing each property separately, both in policy research and at the foundational level. We particularly emphasize the need of reconsidering the respective roles of decision theory and behavioural economics to delineate nudge 2 correctly. The paper differs from most of the literature in focusing on the definitional rather than the normative problems of nudge.

Keywords: behavioural economics; decision theory; liberal paternalism; nudge; rationality; decision biases; policy analysis; Thaler and Sunstein; Kahneman and Tversky (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hpe and nep-upt
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01950716v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Behavioural Public Policy, 2018, 2 (01), pp.107-124

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Related works:
Journal Article: Rethinking nudge: not one but three concepts (2018)
Working Paper: Rethinking Nudge: Not One But Three Concepts (2017)
Working Paper: Rethinking Nudge: Not One But Three Concepts (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01950716

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