Choice architecture autonomy. The choice architecture term was originally coined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness". Thaler and Sunstein have endorsed thoughtful design of choice architecture as a means to improve consumer decision-making by minimizing biases and errors that arise as the result of bounded rationality. This approach is an example of "libertarian paternalism", a philosophy endorsed by Thaler and Sunstein that aims to "nudge" individuals toward choices that are in their best interest without limiting choice. Libertarian paternalism may also be described as soft paternalism. Behavioral scientists have grouped
Richard Thaler After learning that he had won the Nobel Prize, Thaler said that his most important contribution to economics "was the recognition that economic agents are human, and that economic models have to incorporate that." In a nod to the sometimes-unreasonable behavior he has studied so extensively, he also joked that he intended to spend the prize money "as irrationally as possible." Paul Krugman, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, tweeted "Yes! Behavorial econ is the best thing to happen to the field in generations, and Thaler showed the way." However, Thaler's selection was not met with