Attention Utility: Evidence from Individual Investors

Edika Quispe-Torreblanca, John Gathergood, George Loewenstein and Neil Stewart

No 8091, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Attention utility is the hedonic pleasure or pain derived purely from paying attention to information. Using data on brokerage account logins by individual investors, we show that individuals devote disproportionate attention to already-known positive information about the performance of individual stocks within their portfolios. This aversion to paying attention to unfavorable information, through its effect on logins, has consequences for trading activity; it reduces trading after recent losses and increases trading after recent gains. Attention utility is distinct from models of belief-based utility and information aversion (in which information not sought is not fully known), and implies that the pleasure and pain of attending to known information may be important for individual behavior.

Keywords: information utility; attention; login; investor behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 G40 G41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Attention Utility: Evidence From Individual Investors (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8091

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