[a_simm]

I defend and elucidate. Worthlessness I would define here relative to the amounts of public and of policy attention the nudge findings have received vs net value add modified by these results.

Perhaps due to the PR efforts of leading researchers, it was much more than “set defaults intelligently.” The interpretations were more like: we can use social science to shape peoples’ behavior at the margins. Further these marginal changes would cumulate to substantive and lasting societal improvement.

On reflection, it seems to me that the value of this paper stems from its attempt to measure or quantify publication bias. In this case, the bias was positive in the direction of with studies confirming nudge effects.

Taking that a step further implies that the actual net nudge effects across published and unpublished studies were statistically and therefore substantively insignificant. Hence the use of the term worthless, i.e. non-findings.

To say that it is costless to implement a nudge scheme in the behavioral economics sense is simply untrue. In the retirement case it required a lengthy ethical and legal debate; some study and political argument as to the best outcome, which is in part a redistributive question, hard costs associated with revision or development of messages and other materials, etc.

Worse I believe is the damage done from attention and action predicated on now seemingly faulty social science. What could’ve been done instead and what will happen in the next time a social scientist claims an ‘easy’ way to make things better are costs.

[curiousllama]

> statistically and therefore substantively insignificant

This is not what statistical significance implies. This misunderstanding, and its inverse, leads to the very errors for which you criticize the "nudge" papers.

More to the broader point, "set defaults intelligently" in fact implies the ability to "shape peoples' behavior at the margins." Otherwise, why bother thinking about them?

That's why what is actually at issue with "nudges" is effect size & context: how much of a difference can we have, and where?

And to that question, this paper provides little insight. It aggregates too much & ignores real-world policy evidence.

Now, it's still a good paper - people have gone WAY overboard with nudges in silly places - it just needs to be understood as "let's reign in expectations" and not "this field is bunk"

[Retric]

> Taking that a step further …

That step is in no way supported by the evidence provided.