George Loewenstein has been at the forefront of progress in bringing together the disciplines of economics and psychology. This volume presents a selection of his most influential papers with an introduction which provides an historical overview of the concept of preferences, summarizes his papers, and places them in the context of the literature.

One area in which Loewenstein has made a major contribution is in the analysis of how individual preferences are formed: whether they can be predicted and the extent to which they are influenced by emotion rather than reason. This volume presents a selection of his most influential papers with an introduction which provides an historical overview of the concept of preferences, summarizes his papers, and places them in the context of the literature.