Nudge (book) nudge?" Nudge (book) Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness is a book written by University of Chicago economist Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, first published in 2008. The book draws on research in psychology and behavioral economics to defend libertarian paternalism and active engineering of choice architecture. The book received largely positive reviews. "The Guardian" described it as "never intimidating, always amusing and elucidating: a jolly economic romp but with serious lessons within." It was named one of the best books of 2008 by "The Economist". One of the main justifications for
Cass Sunstein public support for George W. Bush's judicial nominees Michael W. McConnell and John G. Roberts, as well as providing strongly maintained theoretical support for the death penalty. Much of his work also brings behavioral economics to bear on law, suggesting that the "rational actor" model will sometimes produce an inadequate understanding of how people will respond to legal intervention. Sunstein has collaborated with academics who have training in behavioral economics, most notably Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Christine M. Jolls, to show how the theoretical assumptions of law and economics should be modified by new empirical findings about how people