Table of Contents

Preface ix
1 A Curse 1
2 Sludge Hurts 21
3 Sludge as Architecture 35
4 Sludge in Action 45
5 Reasons for Sludge 73
6 Sludge Audits 91
7 The Most Precious Commodity 109
Acknowledgments 113
Notes 115
Index 141

About the Author

Cass R. Sunstein is Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and Chair of the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioral Insights and Sciences at the World Health Organization. He is the author of The Cost-Benefit Revolution, How Change Happens, Too Much Information, Sludge (all published by the MIT Press), Nudge (with Richard H. Thaler), and other books.
 

Reviews

If nudges have a mortal enemy, or perhaps the equivalent of antimatter to matter, it's "sludge." Sunstein uses this term to describe unnecessarily effortful processes, bureaucratic procedures, and other barriers to desirable outcomes. Sunstein has exposed this conflict head-on in his new book, Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It. He shows how the most effective government programs, Medicare and Social Security, reach almost all eligible citizens because the government does the recordkeeping and offers simple enrollment processes to receive benefits.
--Forbes "Sludge, according to Cass Sunstein, is whatever frictions separate us from what we want. It comes in many forms...even sensible requirements that take more time than we can spare."
--The Christian Century In Sludge, Sunstein shines a light in the bureaucratic darkness, and, by calling for "sludge audits," adds his moral authority to the growing demand to clear out the bureaucratic underbrush.
--Education Next