Most People Like Nudges: And Why That Matters

This chapter reports the results of nationally representative surveys in fourteen countries, investigating the attitudes of people towards nudges and nudging, with a particular focus on environmental and health nudges. The countries covered are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. There is strong majority support for both health and environmental nudges in all countries, with the exception of Japan, Denmark, and Hungary. China and South Korea stand out with particularly high acceptance rates. Beyond reporting the results of the combined dataset for the first time, the chapter provides an explanation first, of why policy makers might be interested in public approval or disapproval of nudges, and second, how information of public acceptance can inform both uses of and constraints on nudging.