Escaping Paternalism Book Club

If you haven’t heard of Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman‘s Escaping Paternalism, you should.  The book is an unbelievably learned, thoughtful, fair, wise, and inspired critique of applied behavioral economics in general and libertarian paternalism (a.k.a. “nudge“) in particular.

The book is not light reading.  While Rizzo and Whitman patiently introduce readers to key research and concepts in behavioral economics as they go, specialists are their target audience.  The upshot: this is a perfect opportunity for a new book club to walk a broader audience through this outstanding work of scholarship.

If you want to be part of the book club, I suggest you purchase Escaping Paternalism now and get reading.  I’ll post the first installment roughly one month from today, and follow up with at least three more posts.  Readers can leave their reactions in the comments.  Then, one or both of the authors will publish guest posts responding to both myself and EconLog readers.  I’ll post my followup reactions, and give Mario and Glen the final word.

Who’s with me?

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