"Nudge" is about choices-how we make them and how we're led to make better ones. Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein offer new perspective on how to prevent the countless bad mistakes we make in our lives-including ill-advised personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources, and other numberous bad decisions regarding health care, our families, and education. Citing decades of cutting-edge behavioral science research, they demonstrate that sensible "choice architecture" can successfully nudge people toward the best decision without restricting their freedom of choice. Terrifically straightforward, informative, and often very entertainging, this book is a must read for anyone with an interest in our individual and collective well-being.

Humans and Econs: Biases and blunders -- Resisting temptation -- Following the herd -- When do we need a nudge? / Money: Save more tomorrow -- Naive investing -- Credit markets -- Privatizing social security: smorgasbord style / Health: Prescription drugs: Part D for daunting -- How to increase organ donations -- Saving the planet / Freedom: Improving social choices -- Should patients be forced to buy lottery tickets? -- Privatizing marriage / Extensions and objections: A dozen nudges -- The real third way -- Bonus chapter: twenty more nudges / Postscript: November 2008.