Project SherlockEst. Knowledge

Paper

2003

Libertarian Paternalism

Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein

Argues that because some default option always has to be set, choosing the one that helps people while leaving every alternative open is a form of paternalism that costs nobody their freedom to opt out.

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FreeIntermediatelink checked 17 Sept 2026

Read these first

Not a difficulty warning — a route. These are in the library too.

The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of ChoiceAmos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1981Shows that describing an identical choice in terms of gains versus losses reliably reverses which option people prefer, undermining the assumption that preferences are independent of how options are worded.

Groundwork for

Works in the library that name this one as a prerequisite.

Regulation for Conservatives: Behavioral Economics and the Case for "Asymmetric Paternalism"Colin Camerer et al., 2003Argues that policies nudging people away from their own well-documented cognitive biases -- a cooling-off period, a default enrolment -- can respect autonomy while still correcting predictable mistakes.

Filed under Behavioural Economics in Economics.