The Economics of Choice

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that in the UK, we are surrounded by an abundance of choice, and yet this choice is something we often feel somewhat ambivalent about. We feel overwhelmed and overloaded, perhaps even ending up buying less if we’re faced with too many options. But we should recognize that we are privileged to experience choice abundance and that things might feel worse if we faced a choice deficit. A recent study with over 7,000 participants from six countries found that choice deprivation—a feeling of not having enough to choose from—not choice overload is the most common ...