If you do the math, juniors at Stanford are only seven-twelfths of the way through their college careers. Unless Math51 has permanently damaged my brain, I believe that’s only a little over half. Only halfway done with the undergraduate experience, and yet I feel jaded – old – washed up. At the start of this quarter, I needed a shot in the arm.
I wasn’t wanting for long. In the guise of a freshman I met outside a class on the very first day, my shot in the arm found me. He was excited about taking classes way beyond his capability. He was enthused about goals that would take decades to complete. But – and this is crucial – he was most excited about the little steps, the incremental pieces of a larger process. At the risk of sounding trite: his zeal is drawn from the journey, not just the promise of a destination.
Fittingly, this young man’s passion currently centers around a topic relatively unconcerned with results. He is interested in behavioral economics – nudge economics, specifically. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book, Nudge, has prodded its altruistic disciples into changing the world bit by little bit. “Nudges” are attempts to alter our choice architecture, to change how you and I make decisions. The decisions targeted are generally very small, made at the margin, but they add up, multiply, and eventually make a change for the better. Examples given in the book include increasing organ donations (when renewing your driver’s license, you are required to state whether or not you would like to be listed a donor) and creating more retirement savings (employees who don’t specify otherwise are automatically enrolled in a high-savings program). Little things, little changes, could make a world of difference.
My shot in the arm’s passion for nudging centers on what Stanford can do to elbow us into being more socially and environmentally conscious. My favorite idea: re-labeling trash cans. By changing the distinction between “RECYLABLES” vs. “TRASH” to “RECYCLABLES” vs. “NON-RECYCLABLES,” the choice architecture puts the thrower of the garbage into a more recycle-friendly state of mind. This would cost relatively little, and might change the ratio of recyclable to garbage material substantially. Shifting a few words can shift an entire paradigm.
My newly found (and admittedly ill-researched) fascination with Nudge and nudgers is of course two-pronged. I am energized about the idea of behavioral economics and the potential change it could make at Stanford, but I am also thrilled to find that one tiny conversation can jar my jaded brain back into overdrive. Stanford is full of nudgers, full of inspiring, motivated, intelligent people. And even though you may occasionally forget, you’re one of them, too.
For more information on “nudging” at Stanford, contact the author or Jason Bade (jwbade@stanford.edu).
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Thaler and Sunstein are geniuses. End of story.
Hey Erin, check out a reference I made to nudges and Thaler and Sunstein’s libertarian paternalism in an earlier post on the blog: http://blog.stanfordreview.org/2009/10/03/the-dailys-new-conservative-voice/#comment-825. I push back a little on how useful it is, so could be a neat way to add to a discussion.
There is a lot more to Behavioral Economics than just “Nudge.” You are going to the right school to explore this subject. Stanford has a Neuroeconomcs department. From my viewpoint NE is BE with the subject strapped into an FMRI machine.
Tim–I read your linked-to comment: an interesting point (and one I’ve considered myself). The concept of libertarian paternalism still includes the very un-libertarian concept of, well, paternalism. To trust authorities (not just the government) in even setting the defaults is certainly a concession of some of our liberty that makes me, too, uncomfortable. But one must consider that a default has already been set regardless of government action for most decisions in life, and that default, as demonstrated so eloquently in “Nudge” and “Predictably Irrational,” among others, is oftentimes not in the best interest of the decision-maker. So to that I pose a philosophical question: would we rather have the government ignore bad defaults or attempt to fix them? The best solution, I concede, is to make your citizens well informed, so that they don’t need better choice architecture. But this is the fallacy that ideological of which economists have been convinced for far too long–that humans are robotic; they are fully informed and unswayed by emotion and other decidedly human attributes. Recognizing that humans will always be human necessitates libertarian paternalism, because the alternative is either bad outcomes or flat-out regulation. Simply put: it’s the best we can do.
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