American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Revealed Attention
American Economic Review
vol. 102,
no. 5, August 2012
(pp. 2183–2205)
Abstract
The standard revealed preference argument relies on an implicit assumption that a decision maker considers all feasible alternatives. The marketing and psychology literatures, however, provide well-established evidence that consumers do not consider all brands in a given market before making a purchase (Limited Attention). In this paper, we illustrate how one can deduce both the decision maker's preference and the alternatives to which she pays attention and inattention from the observed behavior. We illustrate how seemingly compelling welfare judgments without specifying the underlying choice procedure are misleading. Further, we provide a choice theoretical foundation for maximizing a single preference relation under limited attention. (JEL D11, D81)Citation
Masatlioglu, Yusufcan, Daisuke Nakajima, and Erkut Y. Ozbay. 2012. "Revealed Attention." American Economic Review, 102 (5): 2183–2205. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.5.2183JEL Classification
- D11 Consumer Economics: Theory
- D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty