How "Choice Architecture" can affect your health and wealth

Image via Wikipedia Laura Rowley writes the "Money & Happiness" column for Yahoo finance. It appears she's also read Nudge, and was impressed with the topic. I wrote about the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic, and how bringing someone's attention to something can give that thing a life-force of its own.

Rowley covers another part of the book where the authors discuss how the "default" settings on health and investment plans can have a major influence on your life.

...the widespread tendency to go with the default option creates an opportunity for better decision-making, according to Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the authors of "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness." Their proposal: Change the structure of the choice, and inertia will result in better outcomes -- higher savings rates, improved health care, and more organ donors.

She sums up parts of the book pretty well, but I still think people should take the time and read the book.

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