Experimental demonstration of systematic errors and biases in human choice behavior might seem to undermine the conceptual basis of the individualistic approach to welfare analysis, in which people's interests are inferred from the choices that they are observed to make. This essay argues that...

The behavioral revolution in economics has demonstrated that human beings often have difficulty making wise choices. The most widely chronicled difficulties arise for decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, those whose consequences unfold over significant amounts of time, and decisions...