Cass R. Sunstein, "Choosing not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice," Oxford University Press, New York (2015).

AuthorDiaconu, David
PositionBook review

Cass R. Sunstein, "Choosing not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice," Oxford University Press, New York (2015)

In Choosing not to choose: understanding the value of choice, Cass R. Sunstein focuses on the individuals' dependence on the current state of affairs; in other words, on the status-quo. Thus, the main subject is the status-quo bias, which represents the individual tendency to prefer the status quo to other alternatives. This approach came from the field of Behavioural Economics and was first developed by Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988). According to the literature, status quo bias is a part of what is known as choice architecture. "People may not notice it, but it's nonetheless there" (Sunstein, 2015, 20). Thus, when any institution, either public or private, changes or establishes a default rule, "they are counting on people's reluctance to choose, but they do not force anyone to do anything" (Sunstein 2015, 20).

Because this book is a behavioural economics one, the methodology that the author adopts is mainly the experimental one, though he is also using more complex research methods such as fMRI. (2) Thus, conducting or referring to some experiments, each argument is validated by at least one experiment which tested that argument or situation. Realistically, the experimental method has many limits. The biggest one resides in its artificiality. The social processes that happen in a laboratory may not appear in a natural social medium (Babbie 2010, 333), or there may appear either Rosenthal effect (Rosenthal 2009, 327; Chelcea 2007, 473) or Hawthorne effect (McDermott 2011, 61). Nonetheless, it was adopted by all behavioural economists because they consider it to be the only method in which researchers can test individual choices and decision-making procedures.

The topics which are discussed in this book are from a wide range of both theoretical and empirical approaches to behavioural economics. For example, as other authors, Sunstein presented the status-quo bias and the organ donation public policy. About the way the organ donation status is formed the results are that in the opt-out condition (the situation in which the individuals are by default donors) are higher than the opt-in (the situation in the individuals are by default non-donors) (Johnson and Goldstein 2003; Vladucu et.al (forthcoming)). Firstly, Sunstein presents a part of the literature review and after this he presents the main questions and goals of this...

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