IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v110y2020i9p2948-63.html

Ultimatum Bargaining with Rational Inattention

Author

Listed:
  • Doron Ravid

Abstract

A seller bargains with a rationally inattentive buyer (Sims 2003) over a good of random quality. After observing quality, the seller makes a take-it-or-leave-it offer. The buyer pays attention to the seller's product and offer at a cost proportional to expected entropy reduction. Because attention is free off-path, multiple equilibria emerge, many of which are efficient. A trembling-hand-like refinement (Selten 1975) rules out efficiency, delivering complete disagreement when attention is expensive and a unique equilibrium with trade when attention is cheap. In this equilibrium, the buyer overpays for low-quality goods, underpays for high-quality goods, and earns a strictly positive payoff.

Suggested Citation

  • Doron Ravid, 2020. "Ultimatum Bargaining with Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2948-2963, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:9:p:2948-63
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20170620
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20170620.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20170620.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20170620?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tommaso Denti & Massimo Marinacci & Luigi Montrucchio, 2020. "A note on rational inattention and rate distortion theory," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 43(1), pages 75-89, June.
    2. Mogens Fosgerau & Emerson Melo & André de Palma & Matthew Shum, 2020. "Discrete Choice And Rational Inattention: A General Equivalence Result," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1569-1589, November.
    3. de Oliveira, Henrique & Denti, Tommaso & Mihm, Maximilian & Ozbek, Kemal, 2017. "Rationally inattentive preferences and hidden information costs," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), May.
    4. Yang, Ming, 2015. "Coordination with flexible information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 721-738.
    5. Ming Yang, 2020. "Optimality of Debt under Flexible Information Acquisition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 487-536.
    6. Fosgerau, Mogens & Melo, Emerson & Shum, Matt, 2017. "Discrete Choice and Rational Inattention: a General Equivalence Result�," MPRA Paper 76605, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Filip Matêjka & Alisdair McKay, 2015. "Rational Inattention to Discrete Choices: A New Foundation for the Multinomial Logit Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 272-298, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matveenko, Andrei & Mikhalishchev, Sergei, 2021. "Attentional role of quota implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    2. Federico Echenique & Anqi Li, 2022. "Rationally Inattentive Statistical Discrimination: Arrow Meets Phelps," Papers 2212.08219, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    3. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    4. Zhou, Bo & Liu, Ronghui, 2024. "A generalized rationally inattentive route choice model with non-uniform marginal information costs," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    5. Jianjun Miao & Hao Xing, 2024. "Dynamic discrete choice under rational inattention," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(3), pages 597-652, May.
    6. Peter Achim & Kemal Ozbek, 2025. "Flexible Learning via Noise Reduction," Papers 2503.20741, arXiv.org.
    7. Pak Hung Au & Mark Whitmeyer, 2021. "Attraction Versus Persuasion," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202102, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    8. Brian C. Albrecht & Mark Whitmeyer, 2023. "Comparison Shopping: Learning Before Buying From Duopolists," Papers 2302.06580, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    9. Tommaso Denti & Doron Ravid, 2023. "Robust Predictions in Games with Rational Inattention," Papers 2306.09964, arXiv.org.
    10. Tommaso Denti & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2022. "Experimental Cost of Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(9), pages 3106-3123, September.
    11. Peter Achim & Willy Lefez, 2025. "Surplus Squeeze and Informational Hold-Up," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 538, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Ian Ball & James Bono & Justin Grana & Nicole Immorlica & Brendan Lucier & Aleksandrs Slivkins, 2022. "Content Filtering with Inattentive Information Consumers," Papers 2205.14060, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    13. Suresh P. Sethi & Sushil Gupta & Vipin K. Agrawal & Vijay K. Agrawal, 2022. "Nobel laureates’ contributions to and impacts on operations management," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(12), pages 4283-4303, December.
    14. David Almog & Daniel Martin, 2024. "Rational inattention in games: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(4), pages 715-742, September.
    15. Tommaso Denti, 2022. "Posterior Separable Cost of Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(10), pages 3215-3259, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    2. Alex Bloedel & Tommaso Denti & Luciano Pomatto, 2025. "Modeling information acquisition via f-divergence and duality," Papers 2510.03482, arXiv.org.
    3. Benjamin Hébert & Michael Woodford, 2017. "Rational Inattention and Sequential Information Sampling," NBER Working Papers 23787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lindbeck, Assar & Weibull, Jörgen, 2020. "Delegation of investment decisions, and optimal remuneration of agents," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Kashaev, Nail & Aguiar, Victor H., 2022. "A random attention and utility model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    6. Cristina Gualdani & Shruti Sinha, 2019. "Identification in discrete choice models with imperfect information," Papers 1911.04529, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    7. Botond Kőszegi & Filip Matějka, 2020. "Choice Simplification: A Theory of Mental Budgeting and Naive Diversification [“Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption,”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 1153-1207.
    8. Mensch, Jeffrey, 2021. "Rational inattention and the monotone likelihood ratio property," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Quaglione, Davide & Cassetta, Ernesto & Crociata, Alessandro & Marra, Alessandro & Sarra, Alessandro, 2019. "An assessment of the role of cultural capital on sustainable mobility behaviours: Conceptual framework and empirical evidence," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 24-34.
    10. Hebert, Benjamin & Woodford, Michael, 2018. "Information Costs and Sequential Information Sampling," Research Papers 3751, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    11. Flynn, Joel P. & Sastry, Karthik A., 2023. "Strategic mistakes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    12. Youngjae Jeong, 2025. "An Empirical Framework for Discrete Games with Costly Information Acquisition," Papers 2510.19140, arXiv.org.
    13. Jiang, Gege & Fosgerau, Mogens & Lo, Hong K., 2020. "Route choice, travel time variability, and rational inattention," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 188-207.
    14. Fosgerau, Mogens & Jiang, Gege, 2019. "Travel time variability and rational inattention," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-14.
    15. Kwiek, Maksymilian, 2020. "Communication via intermediaries," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 190-203.
    16. Victor H. Aguiar & Maria Jose Boccardi & Nail Kashaev & Jeongbin Kim, 2023. "Random utility and limited consideration," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 71-116, January.
    17. Nchare, Karim, 2021. "Dogit model and rational inattention," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    18. Peter Achim & Kemal Ozbek, 2025. "Flexible Learning via Noise Reduction," Papers 2503.20741, arXiv.org.
    19. Martin Bustos, 2024. "Identification with Posterior-Separable Information Costs," Papers 2402.09789, arXiv.org.
    20. Walker-Jones, David, 2025. "Foundation and identification of multi-attribute Shannon entropy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 334-355.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:9:p:2948-63. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.