<title>Abstract</title> In the wake of Musgrave's move to question the absolute hegemony of individual preferences for normative economics in the 1950's by propounding the existence of merit goods, a recent book by Thaler and Sunstein is now making a similar claim under the label of ‘libertarian...

Social scientists are reluctant to make explicit interpersonal comparisons of well-being. However, implicit comparisons are made on a surprisingly regular basis. These comparisons are based on the wealth and the Kaldor--Hicks concept in utility theory and on self-reported well-being in happiness...