ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at whether people make the economic choices that will give them greatest satisfaction and happiness, and, if not, whether they would rather someone else made choices for them. To answer that question, it is needed to know what makes people happy, whether people know what makes them happy and how much people value choice. One way to use the day reconstruction method to measure happiness is the U-index. The U-index asks how much of the time a person spends doing unpleasant activities. The accident victims should have relatively ill health, and were less happy when asked, but did not expect to be less happy in the future. To explain this, it is needed to introduce the ideas of adaption and habituation. Readjustment and habituation suggest that utility regains its former level. Instant utility is how much utility a person gets at a specific point in time, and can be thought of as a measure of happiness.
