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...

This paper develops a decision-theoretic framework to study rational inattention (Sims [1998, 2003]). We provide an axiomatic characterization that relates rationally inattentive behavior to attitudes towards flexibility (Kreps [1979]) and temporal resolution of uncertainty (Kreps and Porteus...

Behavioral biases like disposition effect and overconfidence have received much attention as a potential driver of numerous anomalies observed in the markets. Also, it has been argued that information uncertainty tends to exacerbate these biases and induce stronger irrational behavior among...

This paper investigates an empirical puzzle in technology adoption: the observation that farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa who have successfully adopted modern agricultural inputs on their farms tend to spread synergistic inputs across plots rather than combining them. Existing theories are unable...

In standard models of rational learning from experience, prior uncertainties and disagreements recede smoothly as common evidence accumulates. However, this presumes that the underlying risks are relatively stable. Otherwise, rational learners need to sift random noise for signs that the trend...

Adding a stage of signal acquisition to the expected utility model shows that Bayesian updating results in a well defined law of demand for financial information when asset return distributions are conjugate priors to signals such as in the gamma-Poisson case. Signals have a positive marginal...

This paper analyses the welfare effects of price restrictions on private contracting in a world where agents have a limited cognitive ability. People compute the costs and benefits of entering a transaction with an error. The government knows the distribution of true costs and benefits as well...

Acquiring information about destinations can be costly for migrants. We model information frictions in the rational inattention framework and obtain a closed-form expression for a migration gravity equation that we bring to the data. The model predicts that ows from countries with a higher cost...

We show how information acquisition costs can be identified using observable choice data. Identifying information costs from behavior is especially relevant when these costs depend on factors-such as time, effort, and cognitive resources-that are difficult to observe directly, as in models of...

This paper presents a general framework for constructing and solving the multivariate static linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) rational inattention tracking problem. We interpret the nature of the solution and the implied action of the agent, and we construct representations that formalize how the...