Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Coming soon: Nudge: The Final Edition

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions--for fans of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, James Clear's Atomic Habits, and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

* More than 1.5 million copies sold
* New York Times bestseller
* Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times

Every day we make choices--about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children's health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible "choice architecture" to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.

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312 pages

Average rating: 7.08

25 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

margardenlady
Dec 27, 2023
4/10 stars
Kudos to Thaler for applying so many principles from psychology to the practice of economics. This was a rehash of many ideas with which I was already familiar, so I was less than wowed by it all.
erinmarie0903
Nov 28, 2023
6/10 stars
Listened to this audiobook on my commute. As someone interested in world politics & economics, I found it interesting. It gave many alternate ways of thinking of present day 'problems' and how we can 'nudge' people to making more rational (as defined by economics) decisions.
E Clou
May 10, 2023
8/10 stars
One basic premise, many thoroughly detailed examples. But the examples are super important life examples about investing, insurance, education and as such are pretty interesting. Be warned though, I don't think it really works as a self-help book. It's more about how governments, companies, or other large entities can point people in the right direction of their best decisions.

There's a political/economic bias in the book which the author admits up front, but is neither liberal nor conservative per se, but something Thaler calls "libertarian paternalism." The idea is that people should get a few choices (but not lots of choices that overwhelm them) keeping in mind that they rarely know what's best or act in their own best interest. Libertarian in practice but paternalistic in your mind? Sort of.

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