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...Staff writer Jillian K. Kushner can be reached at kushner@fas.harvard.edu...
...James K. McAuley ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Currier House...
...with any natural emotional loyalty to educational institutions or their sports teams. I’ll be the first to admit that I simply don’t identify with whatever feelings prompt my friends at other schools to post rallying cries such as "Go Cats! F**k ’em up!" on their Facebook statuses. I cannot claim more than a moderate interest in football as a sport, and I probably won’t fall apart if Harvard doesn’t win the Ivy League championship. But the great thing about school spirit is that...
...classic example of the power of the default is the opt-out 401(k) savings plan. In a 2001 study, only 36% of the participants signed up for a retirement savings plan when they had to opt in - even though their employers were matching their contributions. Free money, and only 36% took it! But when participants were automatically signed up for the same plan but given the chance to opt out, 86% of them stuck with it. Scholars have found similar status-quo results with organ donations. If we have to sign up, very few of us become organ donors...
...These insights are at the core of the challenge to traditional neoclassicism posed by behavioral economics, which has burst into prominence in the Obama Administration. Budget director Peter Orszag is so obsessed with defaults that he used to bring a copy of that 401(k) study to all his meetings; chief regulator Cass Sunstein co-authored a book called Nudge that's all about defaults and other noncoercive policies that can promote desired behaviors. The Administration has pushed one nudge after another, from simplified financial-aid forms after studies showed they could increase college-attendance rates to automatic savings plans...