“Nudging” is all the rage in German government. The concept of designing choice architectures for consumers was developed by University of Chicago economist Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein in their 2008 book “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness”. Heiko Maas, the Federal Minister of Justice, last month ran a conference with Cass Sunstein on the art of nudging and Angela Merkel, the chancellor, recently hired a bunch of behavioural economists to help her design better policies. Verfassungsblog, Germany’s blawg on matters constitutional, has organized an interdisciplinary conference on the topic. It kicks off with a lecture by Cass Sunstein tonight. Read More