Since the publication of the book "Nudge" by Cass
Sunstein and Richard Thaler, these nudges received a lot of attention from
policy and decision makers. They are widely applied and make their way into the
corporate culture in many countries. Nudges are attempts to influence decisions
of individuals not by classic means such as money (e.g. subsidizes for
retirement saving, taxes on unhealthy products such as alcohol and cigarettes,
discounts to attract consumers) or bans. Instead, nudges try to push people in
a direction without changing their choices. For example, reporting
calories in a restaurant menu can induce people to eat less fat food,
changing default rules on retirement-savings decisions can induce people to
save more, or reporting your exercising to friends can help people to do more
sports.
This seminar introduces the behavioral-economic concepts behind nudges,
and introduces a powerful empirical too that becomes
increasingly relevant for policy evaluation - randomized control trials.
These RCTs are frequently used to evaluate policies in general, but nudges in
particular.
Then, students will work in groups to discuss and evaluate actual nudges from a wide range of areas such as healthcare, education, retirement savings, tax compliance, fund raising or many more. Students will then present these policies and their discussion in class.
Language: English
- Profesor: Johnen Johannes