Could “Nudges” Steer Us towards a Less-Cash Society?

Abstract

Every now and then academics write a popularising book on economics that effectively becomes wildly popular. Information Rules by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian comes to mind, and in 2008 there was Nudge — Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, a book described by one website as “the Harry Potter of the policy world this summer”. 1 In the book, behavioural economist Thaler and law professor Sunstein, then both at the University of Chicago, argue that seemingly small changes in the choice context — “nudges” — can have massive effects on people’s behaviour. Other books, such as Daniel Kahneman’s (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow and I’ll Have What She’s Having by Bentley, Earls and O’Brien (2011) have since ridden the wave of interest in behavioural economics. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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