ABSTRACT
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein's argument in Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness that governments should nudge their citizens has been broadly accepted by many policymakers and academics. There are two noticeable trends in the current debate. The first is the continued critiques of the book's ideas. One criticism by the Belgian philosopher Luc Bovens is that nudges are dangerous because they are subtle. Another criticism is that Nudge identifies consistent flaws in human decision-making—but policymakers are, of course, subject to the same flaws. The second trend is an unexpected consequence of Nudge's enormous success—behavior change has become too closely identified with behavioral economics in the popular media. The most influential group disseminating the ideas of Nudge today is arguably the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom. This group—also called the Nudge Unit—was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 to implement the book's ideas in the new Conservative-led government.
