Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. SunsteinNudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Yale University Press, 2008, 300.01 SUN
Economist Richard Thaler and law professor Cass Sunstein have been formulating their ideas about “libertarian paternalism” in various articles for several years, drawing on the works of behavioural economists that explain the irrationality of human behaviour, and suggest new economic models that take these in to account.
Their new book, Nudge, goes beyond explaining our decisions about our own health, wealth and happiness to devising new policies that could, as the title suggests, nudge us towards making better ones. The BBC’s Mark Easton has drawn parallels between their work, current policy debates within the Conservative party and our chief executive Matthew Taylor, and recent review highlighted recent advances in neurology as expanding further still our possibility to understand and control our own decisions.
The RSA has been thinking publically about just possibilities recently, and so it is only fitting that Richard Thaler will be speaking here on Thursday 17 July at 1pm. To borrow a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, please contact the RSA Library.
