The Behavioral Economics Manifesto Gets Revised

Sure, the book Nudge may have become a cultural phenomenon that ended up selling millions of copies. And, okay, it resulted in hundreds of governments and countless companies around the world adopting its concepts and methods. And, yeah, its co-author Richard Thaler went on to win the Nobel Prize and appear in an Oscar-winning movie starring Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, and Ryan Gosling. But, Thaler says, when they were trying to sell the book back in the mid-2000s, he and co-author Cass Sunstein had a hard time finding someone to publish it.

"Basically, all publishers rejected it," Thaler says. "So it was originally published by an academic press." It was only when the book was set to become a paperback that a commercial publisher saw its potential and bought the rights. Maybe it took off because the 2008 financial crisis sent society searching for alternative economic ideas. Or maybe it took off because the book had a catchy title and good artwork. caught fire and finally brought behavioral economics into the mainstream.