From the introduction:

In the late 1990s, Michael Hutter and I spent a lot of time discussing notions of value. Both of us as economists had long felt uneasy with the interpretation of value derived from the general equilibrium system of neoclassical economics, despite its elegance as a theory. We remained unconvinced by the self-satisfied assertions of those of our professional colleagues who argued that if people value things they must be prepared to pay for them, and their willingness to pay is both a necessary and a sufficient account of the value of the things in question. Particularly when applied to artistic commodities this assertion seemed to leave a great deal that remained unanswered.