Consumer choice is a theory of microeconomics that relates preferences for consumption goods and services to consumption expenditures and ultimately to consumer demand curves. The link between personal preferences, consumption, and the demand curve is one of the most closely studied relations in economics. Consumer choice theory is a way of analyzing how consumers may achieve equilibrium between preferences and expenditures by maximizing utility as subject to consumer budget constraints.

Preferences are the desires by each individual for the consumption of goods and services that translate into choices based on income or wealth for purchases of goods and services to be combined with the consumer's time to define consumption activities.

Consumption is separated from production, logically, because two different consumers are involved. In the first case consumption is by the primary individual; in the second case, a producer might make something that he would not consume himself. Therefore, different motivations and abilities are involved.

Sheena Iyengar (born 1969) is the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Division at Columbia Business School and the Research Director at the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business. She is known for her research on choice.

Sheena Iyengar was born in Toronto, Canada in 1969. Her parents had emigrated there from Delhi, India. In 1972, Iyengar’s family moved to Flushing, Queens, where her father helped establish the first permanent Sikh temple; and in 1979, the family moved to Elmwood Park, New Jersey. Iyengar grew up in a bicultural environment, observing the tenets of Sikhism with her family but partaking in American culture outside of the home.

When Iyengar was three years old, she was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease of retinal degeneration. By 6th grade, Iyengar had lost the ability to read, and by 11th grade, she had lost her sight entirely and could only perceive light. Iyengar’s life had also taken another turn in high school; when she was 13, her father died of a heart attack.

Randal Howard "Rand" Paul (born January 7, 1963) is the junior United States Senator for Kentucky. He is a member of the Republican Party. A member of the Tea Party movement, he describes himself as a "constitutional conservative" and a libertarian. He is the son of Republican Congressman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas and had never previously held political office. Paul first received national attention in 2008 when making political speeches on behalf of his father. Rand Paul is the first United States Senator in history to serve alongside a parent in the United States House of Representatives.

A graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine, Paul has been a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since 1993, and established his own clinic in December 2007. In 1994, he founded Kentucky Taxpayers United, of which he is still the chairman.

In 2010, Paul ran as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky and defeated Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway. As a supporter of the Tea Party movement, Paul has been vocal in advocating for term limits, a balanced budget amendment, and the Read the Bills Act, in addition to the widespread reduction of federal spending and taxation. He has gained prominence for his independent positions on many political issues, often clashing with both Republicans and Democrats.