Nudge

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Paperback

Author: Visit Amazon's Richard H. Thaler Page - ISBN: 014311526X - Language: English - Format: PDF, EPUB

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Review

"Fundamentally changes the way I think about the world. . . . Academics aren't supposed to be able to write this well." —Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics

"[An] utterly brilliant book. . . . Nudge won't nudge you-it will knock you off your feet." —Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness

"Nudge is as important a book as any I've read in perhaps twenty years. It is a book that people interested in any aspect of public policy should read. It is a book that people interested in politics should read. It is a book that people interested in ideas about human freedom should read. It is a book that people interested in promoting human welfare should read. If you're not interested in any of these topics, you can read something else." —Barry Schwartz, The American Prospect

"This book is terrific. It will change the way you think, not only about the world around you and some of its bigger problems, but also about yourself." —Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Common "Nudges"

The design of menus gets you to eat (and spend) more. For example, lining up all prices on either side of the menu leads many consumers to simply pick the cheapest item. On the other hand, discretely listing prices at the end of food descriptions lets people read about the appetizing options first…; and then see prices.

"Flies" in urinals improve, well, aim. When Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was faced with the not uncommon issue of dirty urinals, they chose a unique solution: by painting "flies" in the (center of) commodes, men obligingly aimed at the insects, reducing spillage by 80 percent.

Credit card minimum payments affect repayment schedules. Among those who only partially pay off credit card balances each month, the repayment level is correlated with the card's minimum payment — in other words, the lower the minimum payment, the longer it takes a consumer to pay off the card balance.

Automatic savings programs increase savings rate. All over the country, companies are adopting the Save More Tomorrow program: firms offer employees who are not saving very much the option of joining a program in which their saving rates are automatically increased whenever they get a raise. This plan has more than tripled saving rates in some firms, and is now offered by thousands of employers.

"Defaults" can improve rates of organ donation. In the United States, about one–third of citizens have signed organ donor cards. Compare this to Austria, where 99 percent of people are potential organ donors. One obvious difference? Americans must explicitly consent to become organ donors (by signing forms, for example) while Austrians must opt out if they do not want to be organ donors.

Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Richard H Thaler Cass R Sunstein on Amazon com FREE shipping on qualifying offers For Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness eBook author of Stumbling on Happiness Nudge is as important a book as any I ve read in perhaps Nudge book Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Nudge Improving Decisions about Health Wealth and Happiness is a book written by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein The book draws on research in Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Kindle edition by Richard H Thaler Cass R Sunstein Download it once Nudge Thaler Richard H Sunstein Cass R Yale Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Silver medal winner of the 2008 Book of the Year announcements and to send your own nudge

DETAILS

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Revised & Expanded edition (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014311526X
• ISBN-13: 978-0143115267
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Decision-Making & Problem Solving
  • #23 in Books > Business & Money > Popular Economics
  • #34 in Books > Science & Math > Behavioral Sciences

REVIEWS

Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Richard H Thaler Cass R Sunstein on Amazon com FREE shipping on qualifying offers For 157 Reviews Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Kindle edition by Richard H Thaler Cass R Sunstein Download it once and read it on your Kindle Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness eBook author of Stumbling on Happiness Nudge is as important a book as any I 39 ve read in perhaps Improving Decisions About Health Wealth Fast Download Nudge Improving Decisions About Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Download Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness by Richard H Thaler Cass R Sunstein narrated by Sean Pratt digital audio book Get the Cass R Sunstein Nudge Improving decisions about health important book decisions about health wealth and happiness but it Download Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness I love this book Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Nudge improving decisions about health ples we discuss in this book In areas involving health care Nudge Improving Decisions About Health Wealth The third section of this book focuses on health be applied and used across the spectrum of health wealth Aug 24 2008 Improving Decisions About Health Wealth and Happiness Nudge is somewhat thin on practical the argumentation elsewhere in the book

The good part of this book is that it contains a lot of practical and nonpartisan policy advice, such as requiring corporations to sign people up for the 401(k) by default and then letting them opt out. This is an example of what they mean by "nudge". You don't need to coerce people; since something has to be the default option you can at least give them intelligent defaults.

The bad side of the book is its poor understanding of human nature. Libertarian economists such as Gary Becker have been aggressively promoting free markets based on a mathematical vision of rational decision making. Needless to say, this vision could only apply to ultra-logical people like Mr. Spock - the notorious Homo economicus. The breakthroughs of behavioral economics teach us that real people do not act like Mr. Spock. This book does an excellent job explaining the major findings of behavioral economics. But rather than try to understand the richness of real human behavior, most behavioral economists tilt towards the opposite extreme. They pronounce humans as irrational and filled with hidden biases. Homo economicus has been replaced by Homo irrationalus.

That's unfortunate because the real story of human nature is far more interesting. Consider the case of loss aversion (pp 33-34). In a classic experiment which has been replicated hundreds of times, students were randomly given free coffee mugs. The mug-less students were asked how much they would pay to get a mug and the students with mugs were asked how much they would want in order to sell their mugs. It turns out that students with mugs wanted an average of about twice as much as the mug-less students were willing to pay! This goes by the name of loss aversion, the endowment effect, and the status quo bias.

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