RT Article
T1 Nudges in SRI: the power of the default option
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 177
IS 3
SP 547
OP 566
A1 Gajewski, Jean-Francois
A1 Heimann, Marco
A1 Meunier, Luc
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1801297967
AB We introduce nudges in order to incite investors to choose Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds instead of traditional funds. We have set up two online experiments with a total of 713 US retail investors, using three types of nudges to elicit their effects on investors’ SRI investments level: making SRI the default investment, introducing a SRI explanation message, and priming ethical values by displaying shocking images. Making SRI the default option is the most efficient nudge to influence investors towards SRI. Its effect is twofold. First, around 50% of investors do not opt-out of the default allocation. Second, even investors who opt-out of the default allocation invest more in SRI than those in the control group, an effect that appears driven by anchoring. Although investors subjected to both priming and message content marginally increase their SRI investment, priming or message content in isolation appears to have a non-significant influence. For choice architects who want to steer retail investors towards SRI funds, making them the default option appears to be the most powerful nudge.
K1 investor behavior
K1 nudge theory
K1 Sustainable and responsible investment
K1 Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
DO 10.1007/s10551-020-04731-x