Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2017 Aug;28(8):1041-1055.
doi: 10.1177/0956797617702501. Epub 2017 Jun 5.

Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

Shlomo Benartzi  1 , John Beshears  2 , Katherine L Milkman  3 , Cass R Sunstein  4 , Richard H Thaler  5 , Maya Shankar  6 , Will Tucker-Ray  7 , William J Congdon  7 , Steven Galing  8
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

Shlomo Benartzi et al. Psychol Sci. 2017 Aug.

Abstract

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of "nudge" interventions that governments are now adopting alter people's decisions without coercion or significant changes to economic incentives. We calculated ratios of impact to cost for nudge interventions and for traditional policy tools, such as tax incentives and other financial inducements, and we found that nudge interventions often compare favorably with traditional interventions. We conclude that nudging is a valuable approach that should be used more often in conjunction with traditional policies, but more calculations are needed to determine the relative effectiveness of nudging.

Keywords: behavioral economics; behavioral science; choice architecture; college enrollment; education; electricity usage; energy; flu shot; influenza vaccination; nudge; nudge unit; open materials; pension plan; preventive health; savings.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: S. Benartzi is the Chief Scientist of the California Digital Nudge Initiative, an uncompensated position. He is also a compensated academic advisor to Voya Financial, Acorns, Personal Capital, and idomoo. J. Beshears is a compensated advisor to Nutmeg Saving and Investment and an uncompensated advisor to Morningstar and 401k4USA. K. L. Milkman is a compensated advisor to HealthPrize and idomoo and an uncompensated advisor to Morningstar. C. R. Sunstein was Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (2009–2012), served on the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (2013–2014), and served on the Defense Innovation Board of the Department of Defense (2016–2017). He is an uncompensated board member of Greenudge and a compensated affiliate of The Greatest Good, a consulting group that sometimes uses behavioral science. He has consulted with many governments on behavioral science, including in Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Colombia, and he is occasionally compensated for this work. He has also been compensated as a consultant for PepsiCo on issues relating to the use of behavioral science. R. H. Thaler has served as an uncompensated advisor to the United Kingdom Behavioural Insights Team and the United States Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, both from their inception. He also has numerous behavioral biases so would personally benefit from evidence-based noncoercive nudges. M. Shankar was a Senior Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Chair of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (2013–2016). She was also an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (2013–2016) and a research fellow at Princeton University (2016–2017). W. Tucker-Ray was a Fellow on the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (2014–2016) and has also been a Fellow at the Office of Evaluation Sciences (2016–present). He is also an employee of ideas42, a nonprofit organization that uses behavioral science. W. J. Congdon was a Fellow on the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (2014–2016) and is currently an employee of ideas42. S. Galing is an employee of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Relative effectiveness of the interventions in each of the analyzed studies, separately for each of the four domains. See Tables 2 through 5 for full citations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Allcott H. (2011). Social norms and energy conservation. Journal of Public Economics, 95, 1082–1095.
    1. Allcott H., Kessler J. B. (2015). The welfare effects of nudges: A case study of energy use social comparisons (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 21671). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w21671
    1. Allcott H., Mullainathan S. (2010). Behavior and energy policy. Science, 327, 1204–1205. - PubMed
    1. Allcott H., Rogers T. (2014). The short-run and long-run effects of behavioral interventions: Experimental evidence from energy conservation. American Economic Review, 104, 3003–3037.
    1. Arimura T. H., Li S., Newell R. G., Palmer K. (2012). Cost-effectiveness of electricity energy efficiency programs. Energy Journal, 33, 63–99.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources