ABSTRACT
Economics is the study of choice among limited resources. This kind of choice is easy to conceive and, often, to study when the limiting factor is the physical availability of external goods. Choice among internal processes that are available at will is harder to conceive and almost impossible to study, which is undoubtedly why economists have thought very little about it. And yet the most prominent of these internal processes, the emotions, are also limited in regular ways, and could be said to be far bigger creators of value in modern societies than goods which are physically limited. I will suggest a conception of how emotions generate value that is based on what are now widely accepted research findings, and point out some likely implications for more conventional economics.
