The most effective behavioral policies are often also the most contentious. Psychologically informed interventions that promote non-deliberative behaviors (‘nudges’) are often more effective than ‘traditional’ policies (like informational and educational campaigns) that target more deliberative processes. Yet, precisely because of their deliberative nature, people are often said to prefer the latter over the former. In contrast, we provide evidence that people's preferences regarding nudges are malleable and influenced by the method of evaluation – whether the policy alternatives are evaluated separately or jointly. We show that while people exhibit a strong preference for more traditional public policies in joint evaluation, this preference is significantly attenuated in separate evaluation. We find that people perceive nudges as less paternalistic when judged on their own merits, that they are more likely to endorse nudges in separate than in joint evaluation, and that, provided with relative effectiveness information, people are willing to endorse nudges even in joint evaluation. We discuss the implications of these findings for researchers, policy-makers, and the general public.

While it is broadly accepted that individuals are boundedly rational, the meaning of these boundaries and what to do about them has generated a debate between two different views: one that defends nudging as the best possible way to improve the outcome of people's decision and one that criticizes their use. This debate occurs at an instrumental level, conceiving decisions under a goal-oriented perspective. I propose that adding the role of values (axiological rationality) to the discussion can shed new light, not only on this debate, but also on nudges themselves, clarifying and enriching some arguments in the discussion about autonomy and efficiency. This approach will not only be more comprehensive, but it will also increase the effectiveness of nudges by tackling the different components of our rationality. Nudges should not only be goal-oriented; they should also be educational. Non-educational nudges should be used in conjunction with educational interventions. I will illustrate my position with two examples: vaccination policies and nudges in the use of seatbelts.

Professor Sunstein (2017) discusses the possible causes for and policy implications of the failure of nudges, with special attention to defaults. Though he focuses on nudges that fail when they should succeed, Sunstein recognizes that some failures reveal that a nudge should not have been attempted to begin with. ‘Nudges that fail’, however, does not consider fully the relationship between the outcomes of nudging and their likely welfare effects, most notably neglecting the troubling case of nudges that succeed when they should fail. Hence, after clarifying the boundaries of legitimate nudging within a libertarian-paternalistic approach and noting the fourfold relationship between the efficacy of nudging and its normative desirability, this article evaluates more fully the case of failed nudges and examines the hitherto unaddressed problem of successful yet undesirable nudges. This analysis shows that the failure of nudging bears only limited diagnostic value, while the success of a nudge is even less indicative of its normative status. The article concludes with recommendations for policy-makers who wish to employ nudges that are not only efficacious, but also likely to advance the subjective well-being of the individuals they target.

We conducted two Facebook experiments (the first one during July 21–25, 2016, and the second during April 22–25, 2018) to determine what type of message related to injunctive norms is more effective in getting Hispanic women interested in learning about financial planning for retirement. We also explore how social media tools could be used in future interventions to promote retirement saving among Hispanic women. In both experiments, we found that a message centered on peer influence may be more successful than a message centered on familism in getting Hispanic women interested in learning more about financial planning for retirement. When we disaggregate our data by age and state, we find that click-through rates were higher among Hispanic women between 45 and 55 years old, and the largest numbers of impressions were among Hispanic women in California and Texas. When we disaggregate our data by device, we find that most study participants were reached through an Android smartphone.

In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion of the welfare effects of digital goods, including social media. A national survey, designed to monetize the benefits of a variety of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram), found a massive disparity between willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). The sheer magnitude of this disparity reflects a ‘superendowment effect’. Social media may be Wasting Time Goods – goods on which people spend time, but for which they are not, on reflection, willing to pay much (if anything). It is also possible that in the context of the WTP question, people are giving protest answers, signaling their intense opposition to being asked to pay for something that they had formerly enjoyed for free. Their answers may be expressive, rather than reflective of actual welfare effects. At the same time, the WTA measure may also be expressive, a different form of protest, telling us little about the actual effects of social media on people's lives and experiences. It may greatly overstate those effects. In this context, there may well be a sharp disparity between conventional economic measures and actual effects on experienced well-being.