Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2013
Abstract
Cass Sunstein’s book Simpler recounts the author’s efforts during his tenure in the first Obama administration to apply the policy tools he helped derive from behavioral economics. In this review, I suggest that, while Sunstein reports some notable achievements, he exaggerates the utility of the behaviorist toolkit. Behaviorist-inspired interventions are marginal to most of the largest policy problems, and they played little role in the Obama administration’s most important initiatives. The book also reflects a misguided political strategy.
Disciplines
Law | Political Science
Recommended Citation
William H. Simon,
The Republic of Choosing: A Behaviorist Goes to Washington,
38(4)
Boston Rev.
46
(2013).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1811
Comments
Simpler: The Future of Government by Cass R. Sunstein, Simon & Schuster, 2013, $26.00.