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Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness | |||||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Yale University Press Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-04-08 Media: Hardcover Number of pages: 293 Ean: 9780300122237 Book Isbn: 0300122233  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthors:
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| User Reviews: |
 Written on August 3, 2008 Summary: Mostly Rehash With the widely recognized academic reputation of Thaler, I would have expected a far more creative book that covers new territory. I only made it half way through and put it down because it wasn't telling me anything new. This book largely reframes what has been written by several other authors.  Written on August 1, 2008 Summary: Please enter a title for your review so yeah i did what they said on pg 17-18 and measured the dimensions of the tabletop diagrams. the two tabletops on pg 17 measure 5.25mm by 2.5mm and 5.5mm by 2.2mm respectively. A smaller difference that the naked eye suggests, but a difference nonetheless. Then on pg 18 we're presented with a different diagram of two identical tabletops, 2.4mm by 5.4mm (or thereabouts, the sides aren't all even in any of the diagrams) and told these tabletops have the same dimensions as those on pg 17, thus proving they were identical all along. wtf? Written on July 31, 2008 Summary: Not enough for a book I agree with other reviewers that the topic, though interesting, does not warrant book-length treatment. I also think the authors fudge the definition of "nudge." For instance, in the last section of "12 nudges," they mention Automatic Tax Returns for those who don't itemize deductions. Purportedly, such automatic filing will save tax filers millions of hours of time a year. Probably a good idea, but how is making something automatic, in effect reducing choice, a libertarian nudge? And really, how is it different now from the current choice architecture, in which filing is mandated anyway? Similarly, while I enjoyed the idea of separating "marriage" and "civil union" and I think it might make good public policy, I don't really see how it fits into the idea of "nudging." This complaint goes hand in hand with my first one, which is that, in order to come up with enough material to make a book, they had to really stretch on some of the nudges. Finally, and maybe I'm being nit-picky, but I was driven crazy by the amount of parenthetical phrases. It seems, especially in the first half, that every other sentence had something or other in parentheses, most of which in my opinion either could be removed or didn't belong in parentheses in the first place. It really made parts hard to read. Written on July 30, 2008 Summary: Not enough How The book is very well written, has some excellent points and is in generel very informative. The one thing dragging this book down is the distribution of subjects it covers. More than 60% of the book, concerns itself with current political topics in the US, and how they could be handled better by using "nudges" and decision architecture. This has 2 major side-effects, 1. It's mostly irrelevant for non-US citizens, 2. In 5 years time, it will also be irrelevant for US citizens, since they problems mentioned are very specific and will most likely no longer be relevant. The remains of the book is split something like this: 10% What is a nudge (as well as the Econs Vs. Humans) 5% What is liberal paternalism 20% Defense of liberal paternalism against critics >5% How do you nudge people. I highly recommend reading the first 100 pages or so, sadly the remaining 200 pages are mostly filler. Written on July 20, 2008 Summary: Actually, our economic system thrives on poor choices by consumers According to the authors, man is not the hard, cold rationalist, or economic man, who is often described in free market postulations, but is instead quite fallible, even the highly-educated. The thinking and perceptions of man are constantly being waylaid by subtle influences which result in bad choices. The authors propose "libertarian paternalism," a catchall term for the subtle persuasion of people to make decisions that are helpful to them. However, if one examines our economic system, the authors' fears that their paternalism is freedom stifling pale next to the realities of consumer manipulation by large economic entities. The first section of the book describing the various influences on erroneous thinking are fairly basic, much of it demonstrated in psychological experimentation. Unfortunately, life is a good bit more complicated than merely making so-called correct decisions about trivial or contrived matters. There are many areas in our lives where powerful institutions have created a situation where there are no good choices for most of us. Take retirement savings, 401k plans, and investment decisions. Workers did not choose for corporations to abandon defined benefit plans and put the onus on workers to save for retirement. Many workers don't contribute to 401k plans because they have insufficient income - not that they cannot make a decision, a fundamental fact not mentioned by the authors. It is simply disingenuous to criticize workers for the performance of mutual funds in today's stock markets, for their investment "choices." Stock markets have been captured by financial elites who use others' investments as money to play with. The ordinary 401k contributor absolutely does not have the tools or the means to manage their investments on a minute-by-minute basis aided by sophisticated computer software. The idea that parents don't correctly choose a good school for their children is absurd. Let's say in a school district of 100,000 students that there are five good schools with total enrollment of 10,000. Of course, all parents want their children to go to those five schools, or could easily be so persuaded - an obvious impossibility. This is a problem of poor schools, not a failure of parents to choose. Or take the new Part D of Medicare, the Prescription Drug Plan - this plan was designed by insurance companies to be completely incomprehensible with all kinds of loopholes where benefits do not have to be paid. Do the authors really want to use this as an example of choice failure? This is a scam that has been perpetrated on the American public. On the surface, there can hardly be anything wrong with the idea of improving choices; who advocates making poor choices. However, let's consider our environment. We live in a capitalistic economy - profits are virtually all that matter. Giving good information to people is not a priority; in fact, it could be argued that giving disinformation is, especially if it positively affects the bottom line. What is advertising? It is disingenuous to write a book about poor choices without situating those choices. There are many powerful players who are successful because they count on poor choices and ensure that those choices continue. That is the book that needs to be written. If and when we ever empower the citizens of this nation to control the nature of our institutions, then criticize the result and the choices. Now the choices we have are not really choices. |
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| Our price | $17.16 | $17.13 | $14.93 | $16.47 | $16.50 | $16.50 |
| List price | $26.00 | $25.95 | $21.95 | $24.95 | $25.00 | $25.00 |
| Lowest used price | $14.00 | $14.75 | $12.94 | $12.49 | $13.44 | $10.99 |
| Lowest new price | $15.80 | $15.66 | $12.00 | $14.73 | $14.45 | $12.75 |
| Collectible price | - | - | - | - | - | $100.00 |
| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-04-08 | 2008-02-19 | 2008-06-03 | 2008-05-13 | 2008-06-10 | 2008-01-15 |
| Media | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover |
| Format | - | Roughcut | - | - | - | - |
| Number of pages | 293 | 304 | 224 | 272 | 272 | 272 |
| Ean | 9780300122237 | 9780061353239 | 9780385524384 | 9780375424045 | 9781416570967 | 9781400066421 |
| Book Isbn | 0300122233 | 006135323X | 0385524382 | 0375424040 | 1416570969 | 1400066425 |
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