“Soft paternalism” is in vogue among academics and lawmakers, but too much is being asked of it. This Article studies soft paternalist techniques — including nudging and disclosure — that have been used in the employer-sponsored retirement system. Defined-contribution retirement plans...

Firms and governments often use moral suasion and economic incentives to influence intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for economic activities. To investigate persistence of such interventions, we randomly assign households to moral suasion and dynamic pricing that stimulate energy conservation...

Nudges are becoming increasingly popular policy tools. Yet, distributional effects of nudges are largely unknown. We first design an economic laboratory experiment to examine the incidence of an opportunity cost reminder nudge (a salience nudge) designed to curb spending, while accounting for...

We report the results of a field experiment where we exogenously vary the use of social comparisons "nudges" and subsidies for participation in an in-home energy audit program, and follow subjects through to the subsequent purchase of durable goods. We therefore can compare the causal effect of...

Can one-time informational interventions cause permanent changes in benefit take-up? In the context the Earned Income Tax Credit, we find evidence that reminding individuals of their eligibility has meaningful effects. Reminder notices have the largest effect among taxpayers without kids,...