Reminder

Invited Lecture

Constraining the behavioral Leviathan

Speaker

Avishalom Tor

Professor of Law and Director,

Notre Dame Program on Law

and Economics (NDLE);

Notre Dame Research Program

on Law and Market Behavior

March 10, 2026

17 – 19 hrs

Veranstaltungsort/Venue

Room 4.06/4.07

Webster Private University Vienna

Praterstraße 23 A – 1020 Vienna

Public Transport U1, U4, Tram 1 and 2 Schwedenplatz, 10 Minutes Walk

Tram 1 and 2, Julius Raab Platz, 5 Minutes Walk

Your registration in advance is highly apprechiated ! Please mail to

sonnenfelscenter@webster.ac.at

We are looking forward to welcome you at our new base!

Wolfgang Weigel m.p.

(Chair)

abstract

Governments increasingly turn to behavioral interventions (or “nudges”) to advance their policy goals. Such policies have already been employed in many major domain, from health, safety, education, and finance, through environmental protection and tax compliance, to public service delivery and more. Yet, while governments recognize the need to discipline traditional regulation through institutional or economic assessment mechanisms—such as cost-benefit analysis (CBA)—the same cannot be said of their approach to nudges. Instead, there is a widespread view that such “soft” interventions are largely harmless and entail only low costs, needing no scrutiny before they are adopted. This pervasive complacency is misplaced, however, as nudges often produce substantial costs that can exceed their benefits, undermine rational choice, and more. Behavioral interventions must be scrutinized no less carefully than their traditional counterparts, whether through CBA or by developing novel assessment methods suited to disciplining the rapidly growing behavioral Leviathan. 

Wolfgang Weigel

Associate Professor (retired)

Department of Economics

University of Vienna and

Joseph von Sonnenfels Center for the Study of Public Law and Economics (Chair)

Oskar Morgenstern Square 1 Room 05.502

1090 Vienna Austria