An informational cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information. We argue that localized conformity of behavior and the fragility of mass behaviors...

A nudge is a paternalistic government intervention that attempts to improve choices by changing the framing of a decision problem. We propose a welfare- theoretic foundation for nudging similar in spirit to the classical revealed preference approach, by investigating a model where preferences...

We present a novel approach to finite Rational Inattention (RI) models based on the ignorance equivalent, a fictitious action with state-dependent payoffs that effectively summarizes the optimal learning and conditional choices. The ignorance equivalent allows us to recast the RI problem as a...