The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. Institutions know all this, of course, which is why the apology is so rarely left to chance. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that risk is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else.
Where it overreaches
Put a number on risk and it becomes a target; put a target on it and the number stops meaning what it meant. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that risk is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. Economists have spent decades modelling risk as a quantity. It behaves more like a weather system. None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting.
