Innovation Reading Circle
> Innovation Agenda
> Overview
The Innovation Reading Circle aims to help develop theory around innovation through rich, high-level and well-informed public discussion around key and related texts and discourses... [Read on in Objectives]
> Next event
17: Behaviour architects
> Titles
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (Yale University Press, 2008) [293pp]
In Nudge Thaler and Sunstein observe that humans often make poor choices – in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, and happiness – that they retrospectively regret. They believe that, as humans, we are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases. Knowing how people think, they argue, we can design choice environments that make it easier for them to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society.
Richard Thaler is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Behavioral Science at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, and Director of the GSB’s Center for Decision Research. He is also Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research where he co-directs the Behavioral Economics Project (with Robert Shiller). [Read on the author’s page on the book site...] Cass R. Sunstein is the most-cited law professor on any faculty in the United States. From autumn 2008 he will be a professor at the Harvard Law School where he will direct the Program on Risk Regulation. [Read on the author’s page on the book site...]
Order the title(s)
Related titles
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (HarperCollins, 2008)
Exotic Preferences: Behavioral Economics and Human Motivation by George Loewenstein (Oxford University Press, 2008)
> Takes place
7–8:45 pm (6:30 pm for drinks), Monday 8 September 2008. You can add this event to your calendar using the Share feature available from the event page on Facebook.
> At
LBi, Atlantis Building, Truman Brewery, London E1 6RU
Map on LBi site
If you would like to take part please go to the event page on Facebook and select Attending under ‘Your RSVP’, and order the book(s). If you have not been invited please request an invitation. To find out who is taking part, see the ‘Confirmed Guests’ section of the the event page on Facebook.
> Notices
8 September A link to the Peter Parkes’s introduction has been posted in Preparation
We are grateful to LBi for hosting this event
Introduction
The introduction to the book will be presented by Peter Parkes and has been posted on his site.
Points for discussion
Some of the questions that we plan to discuss include:
- What are the assumptions underlying the authors’ approach?
- Is people’s decision making really irrational?
- To what extent are the outcomes for which ‘nudging’ is advocated desirable in the first place?
- Does the book present substantive thinking about the desired outcome of choice problems?
- Does this thesis represent a ‘real third way’ and how does it fit into historical political visions?
- Do the authors approach economics as a ‘zero sum game’?
- What roles does innovation play in their approach?
Overviews and excerpts
Nudge book site, including Part V: Extensions and Objections on ‘a dozen nudges’ [PDF]
Search Inside! on Amazon.co.uk
Background reading, listening and viewing
Ask the expert: Social persuasion, FT.com, August 15 2008. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler answer FT readers’ questions
The Conservatives understand it’s society, not the economy, stupid, Rachel Sylvester, The Times, July 8, 2008
The dramatic effect of a firm nudge, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, Financial Times, August 12 2008 [Shared bookmark]
Nudge, nudge, win, win, George Osborne, Guardian, July 14 2008
Nudge Against the Fudge, George F. Will, Newsweek, Jun 30, 2008. Dare we hope that Barack Obama shares the ‘libertarian paternalism’ of two of his former University of Chicago colleagues?
Dieting for Dollars, Jennifer Barrett, Newsweek, Apr 7, 2008. Can employers put you on a diet? No, but they can make it more expensive to be fat. New ways companies are monitoring employee health habits and rewarding those who shape up.
We all need a ‘nudge’, Stefanie Marsh, The Times, August 9, 2008
potlatch: the nudging state, Will Davies, July 23, 2008
July 17, 2008: RSA Thursday: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Talk by Richard Thaler with response by Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy, LSE. Chaired by Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA. [Video]
Other shared bookmarks for tagged irc17 on Magnolia and tagged irc17 on Delicious. You may also search Delicious for boomkarks tagged thaler or tagged nudge.
Reviews
Comment is free: This nudging stuff is nothing new – and it’s all a bit shaky, James Harkin, Guardian, August 5 2008
5 books that change the way we think – for a while, James Harkin, The Times, August 11, 2008
Nudge, nudge... Pat Kane’s big ideas for busy readers, Pat Kane, Independent, 11 July 2008
Why a nudge from the state beats a slap, Richard Reeves, Observer, July 20 2008
Lured Toward the Right Choice, Barbara Kiviat, Time, Apr. 03, 2008
Taming Your Inner Homer Simpson, Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, May 12, 2008
The Mini-Malcolms, Emily Bobrow, New York Observer, June 11, 2008
The Real Third Way, Barry Schwartz, The American Prospect, May 27, 2008
What Makes People Give?, David Leonhardt, New York Times magazine, March 9, 2008 [see ‘page’ 5]
Are We Ready to Track Carbon Footprints?, John Tierney, New York Times, March 25, 2008
Social policy turned into a peeing contest, Daniel Ben-Ami, Fund Strategy, 21-Jul-2008
Further review excerpts on Yale University Press book page
Customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk
Interviews
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA, talks to Richard Thaler, Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics, about his new book and the Nudge phenomenon [Video]
If you have queries about the event please email Nico Macdonald