“Better off, as judged by themselves”: a comment on evaluating nudges

Cass R. Sunstein ()
Additional contact information
Cass R. Sunstein: Harvard University

International Review of Economics, 2018, vol. 65, issue 1, No 1, 8 pages

Abstract: Abstract Many nudges are designed to make people better off, as judged by themselves. This criterion, meant to ensure that nudges will increase people’s welfare, contains some ambiguity. It is useful to distinguish among three categories of cases: (1) those in which choosers have clear antecedent preferences, and nudges help them to satisfy those preferences (often by increasing “navigability”); (2) those in which choosers face a self-control problem, and nudges help them to overcome that problem; and (3) those in which choosers would be content with the outcomes produced by two or more nudges, or in which ex post preferences are endogenous to nudges, so that without additional clarification or work, the “as judged by themselves” criterion does not identify a unique solution for choice architects. Category (1) is self-evidently large. Because many people agree that they suffer self-control problems, category (2) is large as well. Cases that fall in category (3) create special challenges, which may lead us to make direct inquiries into welfare or to explore what informed, active choosers typically select.

Keywords: Nudges; Default rules; Preferences; Behavioral economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D11 D18 D60 D80 K0 K2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12232-017-0280-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:65:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s12232-017-0280-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cy/journal/12232/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s12232-017-0280-9

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics is currently edited by Luigino Bruni

More articles in International Review of Economics from Springer, Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().