Latest news with #RichardThaler
The Mainichi
15-05-2025
- General
- The Mainichi
The Mainichi News Quiz Answer for May 15
May 15, 2025 (Mainichi Japan) A street in the city of Osaka's Kita Ward is seen painted yellow and with pictures reminiscent of an aquarium, on Dec. 10, 2024. (Mainichi/Haruno Kosaka) In an attempt to discourage prostitution, authorities in Osaka recently painted a troubled street what color, inspired by a Nobel Prize-winning economist's "nudge" theory? A) Green B) Yellow C) Pink D) Blue Correct Answer: B) Yellow Authorities in Osaka painted a street notorious for prostitution yellow, drawing on "nudge theory," developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler. Yellow was selected for its subconscious association with caution, designed to encourage pedestrians to move on quickly and not linger. Early findings suggest the intervention substantially reduced the number of people loitering on the street. Read the article
The Mainichi
11-05-2025
- The Mainichi
Japan police tackle prostitution in Osaka nightlife area with Nobel-winning 'nudge theory'
OSAKA -- In the bustling nightlife district near Osaka's Umeda area is a narrow street known for attracting women engaged in prostitution and men seeking their services. Locals whisper warnings such as, "Never go there," cautioning their children against setting foot in the notorious lane. Recently, residents and police have teamed up to transform the environment of this troubled street. Drawing inspiration from a Nobel Prize-winning economist's concept, their efforts are yielding promising results, complemented by measures encouraging women to reconsider getting into prostitution. Just off the vibrant main streets bustling with young locals and foreign tourists, near the Toganocho district of Osaka's Kita Ward, lies a municipal road roughly 100 meters long, surrounded by hotels and commercial buildings. Its secluded nature made it ideal for illicit rendezvous, and there were visitors constantly. Some neighborhood families strictly instructed their children to avoid the area entirely. Street gains notoriety through social media as prostitution hotspot According to Osaka Prefectural Police, women believed to be engaging in prostitution started appearing on this street around 2022, and social media posts led to its widespread recognition as a "prostitution hotspot." Police arrested or referred to prosecutors 30 people for prostitution-related offenses (soliciting customers) during a little over a year through late November 2024. Sonezaki Police Station, which oversees the street, enhanced patrol frequency and collaborated with locals to put up posters with messages such as, "Waiting to solicit customers is illegal," but their actions yielded few tangible results. Starting last summer, the prefectural police began talks with Osaka Municipal Government officials and locals, incorporating expert advice to come up with more effective strategies. Decision to apply Nobel laureate's 'nudge theory' Their chosen approach was based upon "nudge theory," a concept from behavioral economics proposed by Nobel Prize-winning American economist Richard Thaler. "Nudge" refers to lightly prompting or gently influencing someone's behavior toward making better choices. Nudge theory aims to shape people's decisions subtly -- without forced compliance -- through analyzing and influencing behavioral motivations. Takahito Shimada, a professor at Shiga University and former head of the crime prevention research division of the National Police Agency (NPA)-affiliated National Research Institute of Police Science, collaborated on the initiative. According to Shimada, narrow spaces surrounded by tall structures often do not cause stress even when people stay there for extended periods. He explained, "This problematic street acts like a hidden spot. The secluded layout enables women to solicit clients without fear of being observed." Painting the street yellow to deter solicitation Considering Shimada's analysis, authorities painted the street surface yellow, a color typically associated with caution or warnings. The goal was to subconsciously alert visitors and discourage them from lingering. Additionally, authorities commissioned art students from a nearby vocational school to create a series of 10 illustrations depicting fish swimming toward the street's exits. Installed along the pavement, these aquarium-themed images were intended to further motivate pedestrians to move through quickly. Locals warmly welcomed this creative touch. Road painting and artwork placement concluded in December 2024. To evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions, plainclothes officers from Sonezaki Police Station conducted patrols four times daily for a week. The average number of people lingering per patrol dropped substantially, from 7.43 in November 2024 to just 0.86 in February 2025. According to Shimada, using nudge theory to counter prostitution is unprecedented globally, making this initiative particularly groundbreaking. Masafumi Fujino, 79, who leads neighborhood crime prevention efforts, praised the interventions, saying, "The street has become brighter, and people in our community are talking about how much easier it feels to pass through now." Police plan to continue patrols and monitor whether the positive changes endure. However, some question if simply expelling women from one street may just push prostitution elsewhere. During public consultations, locals and police also voiced concern that officials should address factors forcing women into prostitution. 'Yellow cards' carry compassionate warnings to deter prostitution To deepen their efforts, from March 2025, police prepared postcard-sized yellow cards for officers to distribute directly to women frequenting the problem street. While these cards feature explicitly written warnings that prostitution and solicitation are illegal -- hence "yellow card," symbolizing a caution -- they also include messages expressing care and support: "Your body and heart matter. There are people who genuinely want to protect you." Officers from Sonezaki Police Station had personally witnessed women becoming victims of assault and robbery when accompanying clients into nearby hotels. Prompted by a desire to prevent similar abuse, officers created these cards with the heartfelt message: "We don't want you to feel afraid on these streets. Value yourself and stay safe." Alongside the cards, police are handing out flyers produced by the city of Osaka that list contact details for accessible counseling services available through channels such as email and social media, hoping these resources provide support whenever women decide to seek alternative assistance and leave prostitution behind. Ryo Kitagawa, who was head of Sonezaki Police Station's community safety division until the end of March, reflected, "Previously, there were cases where women we'd questioned simply returned to the street. While we remain vigilant in eliminating street prostitution, we also want the area to become a supportive environment for women facing difficult circumstances."
Yomiuri Shimbun
02-05-2025
- Health
- Yomiuri Shimbun
‘Nudges' Can Promote Good Behavior, But Have Limits
At any convenience store, there are now footprint marks on the floor that lead up to the cash registers. People wait on these marks without thinking about them. This behavior has become a part of our everyday lives. In fact, the marks were introduced to encourage people to social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on what is called 'nudge' theory. In this theory, 'nudges' refer to techniques that promote changes in people's behavior without restricting their choices or significantly changing their economic incentives. Examples of nudges include providing simple and easy-to-understand information and the framing effect, which refers to how people's impressions and decision-making are influenced when identical information is presented in different ways. Footprint marks are easily understood to mean that this is where you should wait, and they prompt people to do just that: wait there. If the store simply puts a notice in front of the cash register saying, 'Please keep a distance of at least one meter from the person in front of you when lining up,' the effect will likely be more limited. Few would even take the trouble to read this notice. Even those who do are unlikely to feel motivated enough to follow it. Footprint marks, by contrast, seem to offer a way to encourage people to naturally 'behave better' without hassling them. The use of nudges grew significantly after Richard Thaler, a professor at the University of Chicago, won the 2017 Nobel prize for economics. Thaler was highly praised for applying nudges in various policy areas as he advanced behavioral economics, which incorporates psychology into economics. Nudges now play a role in encouraging individuals to eat healthier and exercise, become organ donors and conserve the environment, among other beneficial behaviors. Going global Nudges have spread to public institutions around the world. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in 2017 that more than 200 public agencies had incorporated nudges into their policies. In Japan, too, the central government's ministries and agencies, local governments, industrial organizations and academia joined hands in April 2017 to inaugurate the Nudge Unit of Japan. Local governments have themselves set up 26 local nudge units and their activities are shared on the Jichitai Nudge Share website. Nudges are likely favored as policy tools because many of them are less costly and can be implemented at the discretion of civil servants. Taxes and subsidies require approval from legislative organs or budgetary measures. Devising nudges, on the other hand, can be made merely with the clever use of language and is almost cost-free. And in fact, Japan's laws often include a 'mandatory effort' clause, requiring people to try to comply with the law. There is a strong need to promote desirable behavior without coercion, and this may also have had an impact on the use of nudges. An example of a 'mandatory effort' clause in Japan is one requiring cyclists to wear helmets. Even if a cyclist does not follow the rule, there will be no penalty. The policy objective is to encourage 'desirable' behavior while guaranteeing freedom of choice, and in such cases, nudges are a natural means of achieving this. During the pandemic, a mandatory effort clause stipulated people make an effort to get vaccinated, which meant that the decision of whether to get a shot was left up to them. At that time, a study was conducted abroad, focusing on what kinds of nudge promoted COVID-19 vaccinations. The findings showed that one effective message was stating that a vaccine was 'reserved for you.' This outcome was due to the 'endowment effect,' which comes from behavioral economics theory. A study jointly conducted by Shusaku Sasaki, a specially appointed associate professor at the University of Osaka; Tomoya Saito, director of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases; and myself found that an effective message for motivating the elderly in Japan to get a COVID-19 shot was: 'Your vaccination encourages the people around you to get vaccinated.' In the case of COVID-19, just the effectiveness of the vaccines could not be used in messaging because the vaccines were new to us and the virus was mutating. Nudges are an important policy instrument that promote socially desirable decision-making and behavior while ensuring people's autonomy. That said, as Toshiji Kawagoe, a professor at Future University Hakodate, discusses in his book 'Kodo Keizaigaku no Shi' (The death of behavioral economics), nudges are not a panacea and in some cases they have been ineffective or produced the opposite effect to what was intended. George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, and Nick Chater, a professor at Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom, have argued in a joint academic paper that while there are areas where the right approach is to use taxes and subsidies, there are other areas where these should be combined with nudges. Strengths and limitations By focusing too much on nudges, governments could end up being slow to implement necessary policies using taxes, subsidies or regulations. Shlomo Benartzi, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other researchers carried out a study to determine the cost-effectiveness of using nudges to increase college enrollment, energy conservation and influenza vaccinations, relative to traditional policy tools such as taxes and subsidies. The study found that, in these three areas, nudges were more cost-effective than taxes and subsidies. But recent research has suggested that nudges could negate the effects of those measures. According to a study by Hunt Allcott, a professor at Stanford University in the United States, and other researchers, even if nudges are effective on average, the magnitude and direction of the effect may be different for different people, making them an undesirable tool from a policy perspective. For example, according to their report, health warning labels on sugary drinks cause 'health nuts' to excessively reduce consumption, but they can be less effective for 'inattentives,' the real target of the health warnings. There are cases where nudges are ineffective. An article by Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard University, notes cases where people with strong preferences or beliefs, as well as companies and organizations with vested interests, take actions to counteract nudges. It has also been said people who feel their freedoms have been infringed upon become so resentful that they act counter to the nudge. On the other hand, a nudge intervention that appeals to social norms, such as 'Many people are doing this,' can be effective but causes its own problems. When the pandemic broke out, mask wearing was widely adopted as an infection control measure thanks to the phrase 'wear a mask for the good of society.' However, once the social norm of wearing masks took root, it persisted even after its necessity for wearing masks had diminished. When promoting good health or environmental protection, there is little change in what is considered desirable behavior. But infection control measures vary depending on the circumstances of the epidemic. Given that nudges related to social norms tend to be so effective, they have to be applied with care. Lately, there has also been an increase in 'sludge,' or the intentional misuse of nudges. For instance, some subscription-based business models that take advantage of consumers' misunderstandings to get them to sign up for paid subscription plans exploit the 'status quo bias,' in which people are likely to continue doing something once they have started. Likewise, certain financial products exploit what is called present bias, or the tendency of some people to prioritize immediate rewards. The government should strengthen regulations on this 'sludge.' It is important to understand the features and limitations of nudges, which have become so ingrained in society, and to make good use of them while evaluating their effectiveness. Fumio Ohtake Ohtake is a specially appointed professor at Osaka University, where he served as an executive vice president in 2013-15. He was president of the Japanese Economic Association in 2020-21. He specializes in labor economics and behavioral economics. The original article in Japanese appeared in the April 27 issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
