Should an Ethical Public Servant Nudge?

Abstract

Public servants around the world have embraced nudges. Using nudges, public servants can encourage individuals towards a particular choice by changing the way the decision is presented. There are now over 200 institutions applying behavioral insights to public policy, with dedicated behavioral insights teams in countries such as Japan, Singapore, UK, Australia, and Germany. It is so popular that the approach has been described as a "policy movement" and the "default policy option." Advocates argue that by using nudges and behavioral insights, public servants can help people make better decisions. Yet critics from both academia and the public claim that the use of nudges is unethical. It is seen as a

Why Do Defaults Affect Behavior? Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan

“…First, our research design eliminates employer "endorsement" effects by construction: the open lottery used to assign default status and matching incentives makes clear to employees that assignments do not reflect the deliberation of a benevolent planner, and this understanding is clearly visible in follow-up surveys with employees. 3 We also see little evidence that the "default in" assigned rate of 5 percent was perceived as optimal: only 6 of 472 employees (1.3 percent) actively chose to contribute at 5 percent (most people who opted in did so at the maximum of 10 percent). Second, every effort was made to minimize the mechanical cost of switching.…”