The Choice Architecture of Choice Architecture: Toward a Nonpaternalistic Nudge Policy

David Colander and Andrew Qi Lin Chong

Middlebury College Working Paper Series from Middlebury College, Department of Economics

Abstract: This The goal of nudge policy is generally presented as assisting people in finding their “true” preferences. Supporters argue that nudge policies meet a libertarian paternalism criterion. This claim has provoked complaints that nudge policies are unacceptably paternalistic. This paper suggests that by changing the explicit goal of nudge policy to a goal of making the choice of choice mechanism an explicit decision variable of the subgroup being affected by the nudge one can have a non-paternalistic nudge policy that better fits with the values inherent in Classical liberalism. The goal of non-paternalistic nudge policy is not to achieve a better result as seen by government or by behavioral economists. The goal of non-paternalistic nudge policy is to achieve a better result as seen by the agents being nudged as revealed through their choices of choice mechanisms. Examples are given of how nonpaternalistic nudge policy will and will not differ from paternalistic nudge policy.

Keywords: libertarian; paternalism; nudge policy; choice architecture; behavioral economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
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http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0916.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Choice Architecture of Choice Architecture: Toward a Non-Paternalistic Nudge Policy (2010)
Working Paper: The Choice Architecture of Choice Architecture: Toward a Non-paternalistic Nudge Policy (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0916

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