Events
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein is considered one of the most prolific and most cited authors in the USA. He is best known for his theories based on behavioral economic analyses of irrational behavior. His most widely read works include Nudge. Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (together with Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler), Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (together with Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman) and Bounded Rationality: Heuristics, Judgment, and Public Policy. From 2009 to 2012, Sunstein headed the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a sub-agency of the Office of Management and Budget, under President Barack Obama. In 2018, he was awarded the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities.
At the invitation of NIM, the founder and director of the Program for Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School gave a lecture in the Historic Town hall of the City of Nuremberg. In front of 100 invited guests, Prof. Sunstein discussed current findings on the topic of habituation. He focused in particular on decision-making habits and strategies, and showed why the way we evaluate and compare options is so important. For example, habituation is not only crucial for the onset of a midlife crisis - it also dulls all pleasure, whether it is about products or experiences. In order to create new impulses and break out of deadlocks, dishabituation entrepreneurs rethink things from the ground up and push through new ideas in the face of resistance. As an example, Sunstein cited Steve Jobs, who created an entirely new product category with the iPhone.
