Do Free Markets Require Rational Actors?

"Two plane rides the other day afforded the opportunity to read Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. Published in 2008, Ariely’s book is a popular treatment of the growing field of “behavioral economics.” This field combines economics and psychology (and sometimes neuroscience) to try to figure out whether people always behave the way the rational-actor model of economics says they will, and if not, why not."