Nudges in SRI: The Power of the Default Option
通过在线实验发现，将社会责任投资设为默认选项能最有效地促使美国散户投资者选择此类基金，约半数投资者不更改默认配置，即使更改者也会因锚定效应投入更多。
Abstract 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.