Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein

Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School

A middle-aged man with light brown hair wearing a white shirt and dark blazer, facing the camera with a neutral expression against a plain background.

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School.

In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as chair of its Technical Advisory Group on Behavioral Insights and Sciences for Health.

From 2009 to 2012, he was administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the president’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects and advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many countries on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Sunstein is the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Simpler: The Future of Government, The Ethics of Influence, #Republic, Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide, The Cost-Benefit Revolution, On Freedom, Conformity, How Change Happens, and Too Much Information. He is working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, “sludge” (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech.

Sludge: How paperwork, wait times, and confusion degrade our well-being
Sludge may be inevitable, but there are better ways to manage such frictions in our daily lives.
Sludge: Americans spend 11.4 billion hours filling out federal paperwork
Unreasonable burdens prevent people from thriving. Eliminate them.
10 min
Impeachment 101: Why, when, and how the people can fire the president
Getting rid of the president is a popular subject these days. And Sunstein's advice on the subject can show us the protocol — and the history — behind firing the most powerful man in the free world.
5 min
Star Wars: Redemption, authoritarianism, and the appeal of darkness
Nobody foresaw that a science-fiction story about a moisture farmer's adventure with a rag-tag group of interstellar ne'er-do-wells would break box-office records for 40 years and redefine American storytelling. But this Harvard Law professor has a few ideas why it's stuck around.
10 min
Impeachment 101: Why, When, and How the People Can Fire the President
Getting rid of the President is a popular subject these days. And Sunstein's advice on the subject can show us the protocol — and the history — behind firing the most powerful man in the free world.
8 min
Libertarian Paternalism: Eat Well, Retire Rich, and Feel the Freedom
Here's how the government improves your life without you knowing it.
15 min
In Defense of Libertarian Paternalism
Cass Sunstein presents his “nudge” approach to regulation at the 2012 Nantucket Project.