What Comes to Mind

Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

No 15084, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We present a model of judgment under uncertainty, in which an agent combines data received from the external world with information retrieved from memory to evaluate a hypothesis. We focus on what comes to mind immediately, as the agent makes quick, intuitive evaluations. Because the automatic retrieval of data from memory is both limited and selected, the agent's evaluations may be severely biased. This framework can account for some of the evidence on heuristics and biases presented by Kahneman and Tversky, including conjunction and disjunction fallacies.

JEL-codes: D03 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-neu
Note: AP CF
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "What Comes to Mind," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 125(4), pages 1399-1433, November.

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Journal Article: What Comes to Mind (2010)
Working Paper: What Comes to Mind (2010)
Working Paper: What comes to mind (2009)
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