IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/16364.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Optimal Scheduling of Attention

Author

Listed:
  • Eliaz, Kfir
  • Fershtman, Daniel
  • Frug, Alexander

Abstract

We consider a decision-maker sequentially choosing which task to attend to when payoffs depend on both the chosen and unchosen tasks. We show that when tasks are substitutes (complements) such that the flow payoffs are a sum (product) of the tasks’ outputs, the optimal policy is an index policy, generalizing the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) property known in the classic multi-armed bandit problem. We illustrate the usefulness of our model through several applications, including repeated bargaining, dynamic occupational choice, on-the-job training, R\&D, and dynamic supervision.

Suggested Citation

  • Eliaz, Kfir & Fershtman, Daniel & Frug, Alexander, 2021. "On the Optimal Scheduling of Attention," CEPR Discussion Papers 16364, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP16364
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16364. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.