Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?

Sugden, Robert (2017) Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles? International Review of Economics, 64 (2). 113–123. ISSN 1865-1704

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Abstract

This paper assesses Thaler and Sunstein’s claim that policies that nudge individuals towards healthy lifestyles promote the welfare of those individuals, as judged by themselves. I argue that Thaler and Sunstein switch between two different interpretations of that clause. One interpretation gives the clause a wide range of applicability, but drains it of its content as a repudiation of paternalism. The other interpretation makes it more meaningful to say that people want to make the choices they are being nudged towards, but applies to a much narrower range of cases than Thaler and Sunstein have in mind.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	nudges,health,paternalism,self-control
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Economic Theory Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:51
Last Modified:	19 Apr 2023 17:31
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60247
DOI:	10.1007/s12232-016-0264-1

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