It has not been a good year for homo economicus, rational economic man. American voters elected (narrowly) a president who believes that climate change is a myth and that tearing up trade deals will boost growth and jobs. Britons voted (narrowly) in the referendum on EU membership to set the country on a path that 90 per cent of professional economists said would damage the economy over the medium to long term.

Populists have gained and experts, including economists, have lost the public debate in 2016. As populism involves simple solutions to complicated problems, despondent experts think this will not end well: Trumpism will not bring manufacturing jobs back to the Midwest; four years of failing to reduce CO2 emissions can only accelerate the consequences of rising global temperatures.

One economist who would not have been surprised to see millions of turkeys flocking to vote for Christmas is the late Thomas Schelling, whose recent death deprived economics of one of its most profound thinkers. He was one of the first economists to incorporate now-fashionable behavioural insights into his work. One of those insights is that individuals make choices not only about bread-and-butter issues such as how much to consume and how long to work, but also about what to believe. People’s wellbeing (“utility”) depends also on believing things that make them feel good; we derive what is known as consumption value from certain beliefs, Schelling argued in a 1984 article.