Thinking, Fast and Slow

Economic Journal 118 ( 2008 ): 215 – 234. Loewenstein and Ubel,
“Hedonic Adaptation and the Role of Decision and Experience Utility in
Public Policy.”
guide government policies : Progress has been especially rapid in the UK,
where the use of measures of well-being is now official government policy.
These advances were due in good part to the influence of Lord Richard
Layard’s book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science , first published in
2005. Layard is among the prominent economists and social scientists
who have been drawn into the study of well-being and its implications.
Other important sources are: Derek Bok, The Politics of Happiness: What
Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010 ). Ed Diener, Richard Lucus,
Ulrich Schmimmack, and John F. Helliwell, Well-Being for Public Policy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 ). Alan B. Krueger, ed.,
Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Account of
Time Use and Well-Being (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009 ).
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Report of the
Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress. Paul Dolan, Richard Layard, and Robert Metcalfe, Measuring
Subjective Well-being for Public Policy: Recommendations on
Measures (London: Office for National Statistics, 2011 ).
Irrational is a strong word : The view of the mind that Dan Ariely has
presented in Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our
Decisions (New York: Harper, 2008 ) is not much different from mine, but
we differ in our use of the term.
accept future addiction : Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy, “A Theory
of Rational Addiction,” Journal of Political Economics 96 ( 1988 ): 675 –
700. Nudge: Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving
Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008 ).
can institute and enforce : Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto: How to
Get Things Right (New York: Holt, 2009 ). Daniel Kahneman, Dan Lovallo,
and Oliver Sibony, “The Big Idea: Before You Make That Big Decision...”
Harvard Business Review 89 ( 2011 ): 50 – 60.
distinctive vocabulary : Chip Heath, Richard P. Larrick, and Joshua
Klayman, “Cognitive Repairs: How Organizational Practices Can
Compensate for Individual Shortcomings,” Research in Organizational
Behavior 20 ( 1998 ): 1 – 37.