IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v12y2018i1p3-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A worldwide consensus on nudging? Not quite, but almost

Author

Listed:
  • Cass R. Sunstein
  • Lucia A. Reisch
  • Julius Rauber

Abstract

Nudges are choice‐preserving interventions that steer people's behavior in specific directions while still allowing them to go their own way. Some nudges have been controversial, because they are seen as objectionably paternalistic. This study reports on nationally representative surveys in eight diverse countries, investigating what people actually think about nudges and nudging. The study covers Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Russia, South Africa, and South Korea. Generally, we find strong majority support for nudges in all countries, with the important exception of Japan, and with spectacularly high approval rates in China and South Korea. We connect the findings here to earlier studies involving Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our primary conclusion is that while citizens generally approve of health and safety nudges, the nations of the world appear to fall into three distinct categories: (i) a group of nations, mostly liberal democracies, where strong majorities approve of nudges whenever they (a) are seen to fit with the interests and values of most citizens and (b) do not have illicit purposes; (ii) a group of nations where overwhelming majorities approve of nearly all nudges; and (iii) a group of nations that usually show majority approval, but markedly reduced approval rates. We offer some speculations about the relationship between approval rates and trust.

Suggested Citation

  • Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch & Julius Rauber, 2018. "A worldwide consensus on nudging? Not quite, but almost," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 3-22, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:12:y:2018:i:1:p:3-22
    DOI: 10.1111/rego.12161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12161
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rego.12161?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Tannenbaum & Craig R. Fox & Todd Rogers, 2017. "On the misplaced politics of behavioural policy interventions," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(7), pages 1-7, July.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:4:p:310-325 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Gupta, Vipin & Hanges, Paul J. & Dorfman, Peter, 2002. "Cultural clusters: methodology and findings," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 11-15, April.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:1:p:62-74 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Hunt Allcott & Judd B. Kessler, 2015. "The Welfare Effects of Nudges: A Case Study of Energy Use Social Comparisons," NBER Working Papers 21671, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:202-213 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J. K. Pappalardo, 2022. "Economics of Consumer Protection: Contributions and Challenges in Estimating Consumer Injury and Evaluating Consumer Protection Policy," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 201-238, June.
    2. Gilles Grolleau & Murat C. Mungan & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2024. "Punishment menus and their deterrent effects: an exploratory analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 1-19, August.
    3. Irene Mussio & Angela C. M. Oliveira, 2022. "An (un)healthy social dilemma: a normative messaging field experiment with flu vaccinations," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Björn Bartling & Alexander W. Cappelen & Henning Hermes & Marit Skivenes & Bertil Tungodden, 2023. "Free to fail? Paternalistic preferences in the United States," ECON - Working Papers 436, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Kataria, Mitesh, 2024. "How Much Liberty Should We Have? Citizens versus Experts on Regulating Externalities and Internalities," Working Papers in Economics 841, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Mantzari, Eleni & Reynolds, James P. & Jebb, Susan A. & Hollands, Gareth J. & Pilling, Mark A. & Marteau, Theresa M., 2022. "Public support for policies to improve population and planetary health: A population-based online experiment assessing impact of communicating evidence of multiple versus single benefits," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    7. Rafi M. M. I. Chowdhury, 2022. "The ethics of nudging: Using moral foundations theory to understand consumers' approval of nudges," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 703-742, June.
    8. Laura M. König & Vera Araújo‐Soares, 2023. "Will the Farm to Fork strategy be effective in changing food consumption behavior? A health psychology perspective," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 785-802, June.
    9. Netta Barak‐Corren & Yael Kariv‐Teitelbaum, 2021. "Behavioral responsive regulation: Bringing together responsive regulation and behavioral public policy," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(S1), pages 163-182, November.
    10. Luca Congiu & Ivan Moscati, 2022. "A review of nudges: Definitions, justifications, effectiveness," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 188-213, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. I-Fang Cheng & Che-Jen Su & Hsin-Hsing Liao & Nicolas Lorgnier & Anne-Marie Lebrun & Wen-Shen Yen & Yi-Fang Lan & Yingfang Huang, 2019. "Adolescents’ perceptions of mother–father dominance in family vacation decisions: a 25-society study," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 13(4), pages 755-778, December.
    2. Andor, Mark A. & Gerster, Andreas & Peters, Jörg & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2020. "Social Norms and Energy Conservation Beyond the US," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    3. Haoyang Yan & J. Frank Yates, 2019. "Improving acceptability of nudges: Learning from attitudes towards opt-in and opt-out policies," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(1), pages 26-39, January.
    4. Céline Nauges & Dale Whittington, 2019. "Social Norms Information Treatments in the Municipal Water Supply Sector: Some New Insights on Benefits and Costs," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 1-40, July.
    5. Björn Bartling & Alexander W. Cappelen & Henning Hermes & Marit Skivenes & Bertil Tungodden, 2023. "Free to fail? Paternalistic preferences in the United States," ECON - Working Papers 436, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Lars Behlen & Oliver Himmler & Robert Jäckle, 2023. "Defaults and effortful tasks," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1022-1059, November.
    7. Burgess, Simon & Metcalfe, Robert & Sadoff, Sally, 2021. "Understanding the response to financial and non-financial incentives in education: Field experimental evidence using high-stakes assessments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Astier, Nicolas, 2018. "Comparative feedbacks under incomplete information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 90-108.
    9. Jonathan D. Ketcham & Nicolai V. Kuminoff & Christopher A. Powers, 2016. "Estimating the Heterogeneous Welfare Effects of Choice Architecture: An Application to the Medicare Prescription Drug Insurance Market," NBER Working Papers 22732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Eyal Pe’er & Yuval Feldman & Eyal Gamliel & Limor Sahar & Ariel Tikotsky & Nurit Hod & Hilla Schupak, 2019. "Do minorities like nudges? The role of group norms in attitudes towards behavioral policy," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(1), pages 40-50, January.
    11. Nicolas Astier, 2016. "Comparative Feedbacks under Incomplete Information," Working Papers hal-01465189, HAL.
    12. Hyde, Martin & Jappinen, Paavo & Theorell, Tores & Oxenstierna, Gabriel, 2006. "Workplace conflict resolution and the health of employees in the Swedish and Finnish units of an industrial company," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 2218-2227, October.
    13. Grueso Gala, Melanie & Camisón Zornoza, César, 2022. "A bibliometric analysis of the literature on non-financial information reporting: Review of the research and network visualization," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    14. Cadario, Romain & Chandon, Pierre, 2019. "Viewpoint: Effectiveness or consumer acceptance? Tradeoffs in selecting healthy eating nudges," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-6.
    15. Weber, Clarissa E. & Chahabadi, Dominik & Maurer, Indre, 2020. "Antecedents and performance effect of managerial misperception of institutional differences," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(1).
    16. Karola Bastini & Rudolf Kerschreiter & Maik Lachmann & Matthias Ziegler & Tim Sawert, 2024. "Encouraging Individual Contributions to Net-Zero Organizations: Effects of Behavioral Policy Interventions and Social Norms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 543-560, July.
    17. Jorge F.S. Gomes & Joaquim Pinto Coelho, 2015. "I Am, Therefore I Fail†: An Empirical Study of the Relationship between National Culture and Economic and Financial Crisis," International Journal of Management Sciences, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 5(5), pages 354-371.
    18. Ghesla, Claus & Grieder, Manuel & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Nudging the poor and the rich – A field study on the distributional effects of green electricity defaults," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. K. Praveen Parboteeah & Matthias Weiss & Martin Hoegl, 2024. "Ethical Climates Across National Contexts: A Meta-Analytical Investigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 573-590, January.
    20. Rouziès, Dominique & Onyemah, Vincent & Panagopoulos, Nikolaos, 2008. "How HRM control affects boundary-spanning employees’ behavioural strategies and satisfaction : The moderating impact of cultural performance orientation," HEC Research Papers Series 895, HEC Paris.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:12:y:2018:i:1:p:3-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.