Behavioral economics nudge is a microtargetted design geared towards a specific group of people, irrespective of the scale of intended intervention. In 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" brought nudge theory to prominence. It also gained a following among US and UK politicians, in the private sector and in public health. The authors refer to influencing behaviour without coercion as libertarian paternalism and the influencers as choice architects. Thaler and Sunstein defined their concept as: In this form, drawing on behavioral economics, the nudge is more generally applied to influence behaviour. One of
Thaler (modern: ) is German for "valley", and a "thaler" is a person or a thing "from the valley". The Czech spelling was ; many varieties of the term are used in different languages. In the 1902 spelling reform, the German spelling was changed from "Thal" and "Thaler" to "Tal" and "Taler", which however did not affect the English spelling of "thaler". The later Dutch also carried the picture of a lion, which gave them the name ("lion thaler"). From an abbreviation of "leeuwendaalder" come the names of three present-day Balkan currencies, the Romanian and Moldovan Leu and the Bulgarian Lev.