Our goal in developing the concept of consumer surplus is to make judgments about the desirability of market outcomes. Now that you have seen what consumer surplus is let’s consider whether it is good measure of economic well-being. Imagine that you are a policymaker trying to design a good economic system. Would you are about the amount of consumer surplus? Consumer surplus the amount that buyers are willing to pay for a good minus the amount they actually pay for it measures the benefit that buyers receive from a good as the buyers themselves perceive it. Thus consumer surplus is a good measure of economic well-being if policymakers want to respect the preferences of buyers. In some circumstances policymakers might choose not to care about consumer surplus because they do not respect the preferences that drive buyer behavior. For example drug addicts are willing to pay high price for heroin. Yet we would not say that addicts get a large benefit from bei...