Richard Thaler, a professor at Chicago University, and a key adviser to the British Prime Minister on behavioural economics has suggested that large group of drinkers should forgo the long-standing tradition where each one has to buy a drink for the entire party in order to stop binge drinking. This is a part of the “nudge policy.”
According to Professor Thaler groups of three or more should put drinks on a tab rather than enter into an unspoken agreement to buy a drink for everyone in a “round” to cut binge drinking. He said, “It is just a tradition and it has this unintended consequence. So if I was giving advice, I would say if there were more than three of you I would run a tab.” He has suggested this plan to a senior official in the Cabinet Office.
Speaking of the usefulness of the 18-year-old minimum drinking age he added, “…the first thing we ought to do is to spend a lot of money enforcing the laws that we now have.” He said, “When I am in Italy, as far as I can tell, they don’t have any enforced drinking age… What are the limits on the abilities of councils to experiment? Could they raise or lower the drinking age?”
Prof Thaler is author of a book called “Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness” which significantly influenced the Prime Minister in Opposition. Mr Cameron has now established a “behavioural insight team” in Downing St to look at ways of changing behaviours without increasing taxes or introducing penalties.
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