1. Rethinking Nudge: Not One But Three Concepts
- Author
-
Mongin, Philippe, Cozic, Mikaal, Laboratoire d'économétrie de l'École polytechnique (CECO), École polytechnique (X)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), HEC Paris Research Paper Series, and Haldemann, Antoine
- Subjects
nudge ,JEL: M - Business Administration and Business Economics • Marketing • Accounting • Personnel Economics/M.M3 - Marketing and Advertising/M.M3.M38 - Government Policy and Regulation ,policy analysis ,Thaler and Sunstein ,rationality ,JEL: K - Law and Economics/K.K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law/K.K3.K39 - Other ,liberal paternalism ,decision biases ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making/D.D7.D70 - General ,JEL: K - Law and Economics/K.K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law/K.K3.K32 - Environmental, Health, and Safety Law ,behavioural economics ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics/D.D1.D18 - Consumer Protection ,[SHS.GESTION]Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration ,decision theory ,[SHS.GESTION] Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration ,Kahneman and Tversky - 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.
- Published
- 2017