Nudge

Nudge" is a groundbreaking exploration into the realm of behavioral economics, penned by the esteemed duo of Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. Through a captivating blend of academic rigor and accessible prose, the authors delve into the subtle ways in which individuals can be influenced to make better choices in their lives.

If you have not delved into the fascinating world of behavioural economics or cognitive sciences then let this be the book that starts you on your journey. It is highly, highly recommended. It provides deep insights into how humans actually behave in most real-life situations and how such behaviours deviate radically from the simplistic and bland assumptions of traditional economics and sociology over the last 100 or so years. That is why so many efforts at getting people and societies to behave or not behave in a certain way repeatedly fail.With the understanding provided by this book we could design better policies, laws and practices in just about every walk of life, whether personal, familial, corporate, government or multilateral. The concepts of libertarian paternalism, nudging, choice architecture, sludge reduction, and the power of defaults are amazingly powerful tools to achieve significant social good at little or no cost. This book is as relevant to an average individual or parent as it is to law-makers, regulators, politicians and prime ministers. You can use this book to make better decisions yourself, or simply to avoid becoming victim to subtle manipulations by others (corporates, politicians, etc).Unfortunately, the chapter on organ donation partly spoils the joy (which is the reason I ultimately rate the book 4 stars instead of 5). The authors quite disingenuously bend their own rules and split hairs in order to favour what seems to be their personal preference for the ‘default’ option (prompted consent) over what should scientifically/logically be considered the best option (presumed consent). There are at least two blatant contradictions and one implied contradiction in their laborious argument that prompted consent is superior to presumed consent. To top it all, they end the chapter by saying the ‘default’ consent choice isn’t the primary determinant of success of organ donation programs anyway, leaving one to wonder why they devoted so many pages to it in the first place. But apart from this one blemish, it really is a wonderful, eye-opening book. Go for it.

If you want to make people to do something, make it easy.

A must read!

It's one of those books that shows great promise in the beginning and slowly fizzle out. The author has made his point by halfway mark yet drones on with his side of arguments.So the second half kind of feels like a thesis being defended. But the first half of the book is definitely worth your time - interesting examples galore.

A wonderful book that deals with behavioural economics. The book is highly insightful and helps us reflect on and examples be public policy issues and public choices in an altogether light.

For all those who want to read about how our day to day things affect out lives

If one phrase was only learnt in reading this book, this would be it. I'd make this book a textbook for all managers (leaders too, but if they nood this they are not).