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
Nudge (book) placing healthy foods in a school cafeteria at eye level while putting less-healthy junk food in harder-to-reach places. Individuals are not actually prevented from eating whatever they want, but arranging the food choices that way causes people to eat less junk food and more healthy food. Sunstein and Thaler apply the idea of nudges in the context of choice architecture to propose policy recommendations in the spirit of libertarian paternalism. They have recommendations in the areas of finance, health, the environment, schools, and marriage. They believe these problems can at least be partially addressed by improving the choice architecture. Thaler