Nobel Committee Cites Work by ARE Faculty Member

Professor Zack Brown’s research on nudging and energy consumption is cited by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in its profile of Richard Thaler, the 2017 winner of the Sveriges Riskbank Price in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Zack Brown and colleagues at the OECD have studied how small changes in default temperature settings on thermostats can lead to larger energy savings than substantial changes to default temperatures in office buildings. This is because adaptions to small changes are easier. Larger changes induce a response in office workers to raise the temperature back up. This is an example of using behavioral economics to achieve more efficient outcomes. A link to their paper is here.

The link to the Nobel background note is here.