I read the Thaler and Sunstein book, "Nudge" a few months ago and I loved it. In fact, I've been recommending it to everyone I know. I particularly like a couple of concepts they introduce: "libertarian paternalism" and "choice architecture."
This is a Wall Street Journal blog post that references the book and talks about the author's connection to president Obama.
Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Wall Street to the torture rack. Barack Obama is sending Wall Street to the psychology lab.
A key component of President Obama's financial-reform package is its proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would apply findings from the science of human behavior to ensure "transparency, simplicity, fairness, and access" for borrowers, savers and other financial consumers.
That could make it a lot harder for a part-time worker to end up with an exploding mortgage that eats all her take-home pay. It might even mean that regulators will finally pay attention to the visual presentation of financial data -- color, graphics and other factors that exert powerful sway over your decisions.
The proposal is an outgrowth of "Nudge," the brilliant book published last year by two University of Chicago scholars, economist Richard H. Thaler and law professor Cass R. Sunstein. A longtime friend of President Obama, Prof. Sunstein has been nominated to head the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a job often described as "the regulation czar."
[From Regulation Based On Human Nature - WSJ.com]
