Nobel Prize 2017 for Economy. I beg to differ.

Nudging Theory? I am sure you can “Google out” the essence of it. But here is my favorite citation from Wikipedia:

It has been remarked that nudging is also a euphemism for psychological manipulation as practiced in social engineering.

I can not agree more.

Authors themselves acknowledge it by formalizing the root of the theory as “Choice Architecture“.

Simplified: manipulating by architecting the choices (aka options).  In order to convince the target audience, for the required option to be the chosen one.

Think Brexit campaign.

I would like to believe Mr Thaler has not envisaged applications of his theory would go this far.

Prof Thaler is a pioneer of "nudge theory" about how people make bad decisions. (c) Reuters
Prof Thaler is a pioneer of “nudge theory” about how people make bad decisions