Nudge question

Thaler is a pioneer of behavioral economics and most of the theories have been widely accepted among people in that side of the discipline. There are still many folks who are rational-choice economists who do not believe that the rules are violated and might not agree with Thaler (or Kahneman's) views on this.

The big question is whether the policy recommendations are appropriate and whether the idea of governmental paternalism (or whatever he calls it) is appropriate. A good counter balance is reading Tim Harford who argues that pushing specific choices or intentionally "nudging" a default option is not exactly a nudge but more of a push. Harford gives this only brief mention in his book "Adapt". I have not read extremely contrary views of Thaler and Sunstein's work mostly because it has been widely adopted as a public policy bible that aligns policy interests to market-based incentives.

If you want to read the other side, check out some people who are true rational-choice economists. These folks have totally eschewed the behavioral models and insist that individuals respond to incentives and more importantly, that humans are capable of weighing the various costs and benefits for transactions.

Raghuram Rajan has written extensively in fault lines and in the some of his articles in project syndicate blogs on how paternalism can fail.