Defaults and Attention: The Drop Out Effect

Andrew Caplin and Daniel Martin

Revue économique, 2017, vol. 68, issue 5, 747-755

Abstract: Policy makers may try to reduce decision making errors by making a high quality option the default option. The positive effect of this policy can be undermined by ?drop out? behavior in which the default is accepted hastily and with little regard for personal suitability. We measure the drop out effect in an experimental setting using response time as a proxy for attention. We find that this effect can completely offset the benefits of a high quality default. We use a model of costly attention to indicate conditions under which this drop out effect is rational and find moderate evidence that these conditions are satisfied.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=RECO_PR3_0094 (application/pdf)
http://www.cairn.info/revue-economique-2017-5-page-747.htm (text/html)
free

Related works:
Working Paper: Defaults and Attention: The Drop Out Effect (2012)
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:cai:recosp:reco_pr3_0094

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Revue économique from Presses de Sciences-Po
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jean-Baptiste de Vathaire ().