Summary

“Nudging” in public policy involves using behavioral, economic, and psychological insights to influence the behavior of policy targets in order to help achieve policy goals. This approach to public policy was advocated by Thaler and Sunstein in their book Nudge in 2008. Nudging is underpinned by a conception that individuals use mental shortcuts (heuristics) in day-to-day decision-making, shortcuts that do not always serve their long-term interests (for instance, in relation to eating and exercise patterns, road safety, or saving for the future). Nudging does not involve seeking to persuade individuals about the merits of pursuing particular courses of action that will better serve their long-term welfare. Rather, it involves altering the choice environment so that when people follow their instincts, using familiar mental shortcuts, the most prominent option available to the policy target will be one that is likely to promote their own welfare, and that of society more widely. Nudging has come to be considered a core part of the policy toolkit in many countries but academic scholarship has also debated the ethical dimensions of nudging, and there is a flourishing research literature on the efficacy, public acceptability, merits, and limitations of this approach within public policy.