The exogenous manipulation of choice architectures to achieve social ends ('social nudges') can raise problems of effectiveness and ethicality because it favors group outcomes over individual outcomes. One answer is to give individuals control over their nudge ('self-nudge'), but the trade-offs...

Governments and companies that want to promote healthier eating must consider both the effectiveness and the acceptance of the ‘nudges’ given to consumers. Our review of the literature uncovers a wide range of nudges towards healthy eating, from nutrition labeling to portion size reductions,...

Purpose: This study aims to uncover the behavioral segmentation variables that differentiate the problems relating to adoption barriers to fish in-home consumption, which can be used when designing an effective and efficient community education program. Design/methodology/approach: The study...

By way of a field experiment conducted at a university cafeteria this paper finds that placing a vegetarian option instead of a meat option at the top of a menu decreases the share of meat dishes sold by 11%. This translates to a 6% decrease of daily emissions due to food sales. Using data on...

A large fraction of households have very little savings buffer and are therefore vulnerable to financial shocks. This paper examines whether a social norm nudge can induce such households to save more. We ran a large-scale field experiment at a retail bank in the Netherlands. We find that...

A large fraction of households have very little savings buffer and are therefore vulnerable to financial shocks. This paper examines whether a social norm nudge can induce such households to save more. We ran a large-scale field experiment at a retail bank in the Netherlands. We find that...

Nudges are popular instruments in the toolbox of policymakers. Yet, empirical evidence suggests some of these interventions can influence decisions which were not initially targeted, raising the risk to undermine their effectiveness. To analyse such spillover effects, I develop micro-foundations...

Successful responses to the coronavirus pandemic require those without COVID-19 and asymptomatic individuals to comply with a range of government guidelines. As nudges have been widely found to be effective at increasing compliance to prosocial behaviours in many contexts, how good are they for...

Extending prior work studying how managers can lift productivity, we examine a low-cost, information-based intervention that is conducted by other agents in the work environment. Specifically, we study social nudges on online platforms whereby co-users connected with a worker on a platform (or...

Although social advertising has grown to be one of the major online advertising channels in recent years, its effectiveness is not been fully understood. In this study, we use data from a large-scale field experiment on a major social media platform (WeChat Moments) to investigate how the...

Both theory and recent empirical evidence on nudging suggest that observability of behavior acts as an instrument for promoting (discouraging) pro-social (anti-social) behavior. We connect three streams of literature (nudging, social preferences, and social norms) to investigate the universality...

Cause-related marketing (CRM) skepticism significantly affects consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions. Thus, this study draws from construal-level theory to identify how the mediating role of message engagement curbs CRM skepticism. An online experiment indicated that matching skeptical...

Why is the proportion of women who study Economics so low? This study assesses whether students respond to messages about majoring in Economics, and whether this response varies by student gender. We conducted an experiment among more than 2,000 students enrolled in Economics Principles courses,...

Why is the proportion of women who study Economics so low? This study assesses whether students respond to messages about majoring in Economics, and whether this response varies by student gender. We conducted an experiment among more than 2,000 students enrolled in Economics Principles courses,...

Non-pecuniary incentives motivated by insights from psychology ("nudges") have been shown to be effective tools to change behavior in a variety of fields. An often unanswered question relevant for public policy is whether these promising interventions can be scaled up. In cooperation with a...

Non-pecuniary incentives motivated by insights from psychology ("nudges") have been shown to be effective tools to change behavior in a variety of fields. An often unanswered question relevant for public policy is whether these promising interventions can be scaled up. In cooperation with a...

We investigate the causal impact of public discourse on socially responsible market behavior. We conduct laboratory market experiments with products that differ in their production costs and social impact, and provide market actors and impacted third parties with the opportunity to discuss...

Nudges and behavioral interventions have become a popular tool to stimulate prosocial behavior. Little is known, however, on how to design effective social interventions in contexts in which the descriptive norm is low, i.e. when a desirable behavior is only practiced by a minority within the...

We investigate the causal impact of public discourse on socially responsible market behavior. We conduct laboratory market experiments with products that differ in their production costs and social impact, and provide market actors and impacted third parties with the opportunity to discuss...

Both theory and recent empirical evidence on nudging suggest that observability of behavior acts as an instrument for promoting (discouraging) pro-social (anti-social) behavior. We connect three streams of literature (nudging, social preferences, and social norms) to investigate the universality...

Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The...

Wie kann die sozial-ökologische Transformation einer Konsumerlebnisgesellschaft durch eine innere Transformation des Menschen unterstützt werden? Wie können wir lernen, weniger zu wollen, ohne etwas zu vermissen? Welche Formen des Persönlichkeitswachstums können das stetige...

Companies are nudging. That is, they are using the tools of behavioral science as pioneered by behavioral economists and promoted by policymakers to steer employees toward welfare-maximizing options. While companies began nudging to increase employee health, safety, and financial literacy,...

Policy makers increasingly use choice defaults to promote `good' causes by influencing socially relevant decisions in desirable ways, e.g., to increase pro-environmental choices or pro-social behavior in general. Such default nudges are remarkably successful when judged by their effects on the...