Imperfect Attention and Menu Evaluation

Paola Manzini and Marco Mariotti

No 2014-012, SIRE Discussion Papers from Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE)

Abstract: We model the choice behaviour of an agent who suffers from imperfect attention. We define inattention axiomatically through preference over menus and endowed alternatives: an agent is inattentive if it is better to be endowed with an alternative a than to be allowed to pick a from a menu in which a is is the best alternative. This property and vNM rationality on the domain of menus and alternatives imply that the agent notices each alternative with a given menu-dependent probability (attention parameter) and maximises a menu independent utility function over the alternatives he notices. Preference for flexibility restricts the model to menu independent attention parameters as in Manzini and Mariotti [19]. Our theory explains anomalies (e.g. the attraction and compromise effect) that the Random Utility Model cannot accommodate.

Keywords: bounded rationality; stochastic choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10943/558
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Working Paper: Imperfect Attention and Menu Evaluations (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:edn:sirdps:558

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SIRE Discussion Papers from Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE) 31 Buccleuch Place, EH8 9JT, Edinburgh. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Research Office ().