I am slightly irked by today’s news of the selection of Richard Thaler as the 2017 Noblel laureate in economics. (It’s actually the Swedish National Bank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, not one of the original prizes designated in Alfred Nobel’s will.) Granted, Thaler did some praiseworthy and groundbreaking work in behavioral economics, which is nicely summarized in this post by Timothy Taylor.

But Thaler, whom I knew slightly when he was a consultant to the outfit where I worked, gets a lot of pushback when he translates his work into normative prescriptions. He was already semi-famous (or infamous) for his collaboration with Cass Sunstein. Together and separately they propounded “libertarian paternalism”, an obnoxious oxymoron that they abandoned in favor of “nudging”. Thus their book-length epistle to true believers in governmental omniscience, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health and Happiness.

It would be a vast understatement to say that I disagree with Thaler and Sunstein’s policy prescriptions. I have recorded my disagreements in many posts, which are listed below.

Sunstein at the Volokh Conspiracy
More from Sunstein
Cass Sunstein’s Truly Dangerous Mind
An (Imaginary) Interview with Cass Sunstein
Libertarian Paternalism
A Libertarian Paternalist’s Dream World
Slippery Sunstein
The Short Answer to Libertarian Paternalism
Second-Guessing, Paternalism, Parentalism, and Choice
Another Thought about Libertarian Paternalism
Back-Door Paternalism
Sunstein and Executive Power
Another Voice Against the New Paternalism
The Feds and “Libertarian Paternalism”
A Further Note about “Libertarian” Paternalism
Apropos Paternalism
Beware of Libertarian Paternalists
Discounting and Libertarian Paternalism
The Mind of a Paternalist
The Mind of a Paternalist, Revisited
Another Entry in the Sunstein Saga
The Sunstein Effect Is Alive and Well in the White House
Sunstein the Fatuous
Not-So-Random Thoughts (XVI) – first item
The Perpetual Nudger