As of January of this year, U.S. employers can automatically enroll their employees in 401(k) plans with diversified portfolios – without fear of lawsuits and without certain regulatory burdens. Automatic enrollment should increase participation by about one-third, and diversification should produce larger and safer returns, although employees are able to opt out of both decisions. In the future, roughly one of every two 401(k) enrollees is likely to be so enrolled.

This opportunity was created courtesy of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which reflected the joint efforts of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Brookings Institution, including Capitol Hill briefings, publications, speeches, editorials, etc. Yet the real intellectual groundwork came from University of Chicago professors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They call the theory behind this effort "libertarian paternalism,"; and they have written a book about it called Nudge