IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2508.20435.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Big Data Dilutes Cognitive Resources, Interferes with Rational Decision-making and Affects Wealth Distribution ?

Author

Listed:
  • Yongheng Hu

Abstract

Big data has exponentially dilated consumption demand and speed, but can they all be converted to utility? We argue about the measures of consumption and utility acquisition in CRRA utility function under the condition of big data interaction, we indicate its weakness, i.e., irrational consumption does not lead to the acquisition of utility. We consider that big data, which is different from macro and micro economic signals, formed by general information entropy, affects agents' rational cognition, which makes a part of their consumption ineffective. We preliminarily propose the theory that how dilution mechanism driven by big data will affect agents' cognitive resources. Based on theoretical and empirical analysis, we construct the Consumption Adjustment Weight Function (CAWF) of agents interacting with big data and further apply it to a model of firm wealth distribution with financial frictions, we get analytical solutions according to the Mean Field Game (MFG) and find: Lower financial friction increases the average wealth of firms but also leads to greater wealth inequality. When agents convert effective consumption into utility, which is a weight of total consumption, the average wealth of firms increases with the weight increasing. Meanwhile, wealth inequality follows a U-shaped trend, and it will be the lowest level when the weight approaches to 0.5. In conclusion, we try to provide a new complementary hypothesis to refine the 'Lucas Critique' according to the cognitive resources as endowments involved in the decision-making of agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongheng Hu, 2025. "How Big Data Dilutes Cognitive Resources, Interferes with Rational Decision-making and Affects Wealth Distribution ?," Papers 2508.20435, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2025.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2508.20435
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.20435
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Moll & Lukasz Rachel & Pascual Restrepo, 2022. "Uneven Growth: Automation's Impact on Income and Wealth Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2645-2683, November.
    2. Luciano Pomatto & Philipp Strack & Omer Tamuz, 2018. "The Cost of Information: The Case of Constant Marginal Costs," Papers 1812.04211, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    3. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
    4. Achdou, Yves & Han, Jiequn & Lasry, Jean Michel & Lions, Pierre Louis & Moll, Ben, 2022. "Income and wealth distribution in macroeconomics: a continuous-time approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107422, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Anmol Bhandari & Jaroslav Borovička & Paul Ho, 2025. "Survey Data and Subjective Beliefs in Business Cycle Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(3), pages 1375-1437.
    6. Ned Augenblick & Eben Lazarus & Michael Thaler, 2025. "Overinference from Weak Signals and Underinference from Strong Signals," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(1), pages 335-401.
    7. Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    8. Tomasz Strzalecki, 2011. "Axiomatic Foundations of Multiplier Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 47-73, January.
    9. Charles I. Jones, 2024. "The AI Dilemma: Growth versus Existential Risk," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 575-590, December.
    10. Charles I. Jones & Christopher Tonetti, 2020. "Nonrivalry and the Economics of Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2819-2858, September.
    11. Francesco Bianchi & Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2018. "Uncertainty Shocks, Asset Supply and Pricing over the Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 810-854.
    12. Jing Ding & Lei Jiang & Lucy Msall & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2024. "Consumer-Financed Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from Digital Coupons in China," NBER Working Papers 32376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. SeHyoun Ahn & Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Thomas Winberry & Christian Wolf, 2018. "When Inequality Matters for Macro and Macro Matters for Inequality," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-75.
    14. Matthew Gentzkow & Michael B. Wong & Allen T. Zhang, 2025. "Ideological Bias and Trust in Information Sources," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 162-213, May.
    15. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Yueran Ma & Andrei Shleifer, 2020. "Overreaction in Macroeconomic Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2748-2782, September.
    16. Baqaee, David Rezza, 2020. "Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 174-193.
    17. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    18. Yves Achdou & Jiequn Han & Jean-Michel Lasry & Pierre-Louis Lionse & Benjamin Moll, 2022. "Income and Wealth Distribution in Macroeconomics: A Continuous-Time Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 45-86.
    19. Luciano Pomatto & Philipp Strack & Omer Tamuz, 2023. "The Cost of Information: The Case of Constant Marginal Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(5), pages 1360-1393, May.
    20. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar & James Siderius, 2024. "A Model of Online Misinformation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(6), pages 3117-3150.
    21. Pástor, Lˇuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2016. "Income inequality and asset prices under redistributive taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-20.
    22. Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2020. "Political Cycles and Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(11), pages 4011-4045.
    23. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    24. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    25. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    26. Benhabib, Jess & Liu, Xuewen & Wang, Pengfei, 2016. "Endogenous information acquisition and countercyclical uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 601-642.
    27. George‐Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2018. "Quantifying Confidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1689-1726, September.
    28. Ajay Agrawal & Joshua Gans & Avi Goldfarb, 2019. "The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number agra-1, December.
    29. Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Productivity Losses from Financial Frictions: Can Self-Financing Undo Capital Misallocation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3186-3221, October.
    30. Joel M. David & Hugo A. Hopenhayn & Venky Venkateswaran, 2016. "Information, Misallocation, and Aggregate Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 943-1005.
    31. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2007. "Sticky Information in General Equilibrium," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(2-3), pages 603-613, 04-05.
    32. Nicholas Epley & Thomas Gilovich, 2016. "The Mechanics of Motivated Reasoning," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 133-140, Summer.
    33. Allen Vong, 2025. "Reputation and Efficiency: Information Design," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 191-243, August.
    34. Francesca Gino & Michael I. Norton & Roberto A. Weber, 2016. "Motivated Bayesians: Feeling Moral While Acting Egoistically," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 189-212, Summer.
    35. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2016. "Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 141-164, Summer.
    36. Christopher D. Carroll & Edmund Crawley & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka & Matthew N. White, 2020. "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 40-76, July.
    37. Michael D. Grubb, 2015. "Overconfident Consumers in the Marketplace," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 9-36, Fall.
    38. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean & John Leahy, 2022. "Rationally Inattentive Behavior: Characterizing and Generalizing Shannon Entropy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1676-1715.
    39. Andrew Caplin, 2025. "Data Engineering for Cognitive Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 63(1), pages 164-196, March.
    40. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    41. Jesús Fernández‐Villaverde & Samuel Hurtado & Galo Nuño, 2025. "Corrigendum: Financial Frictions and the Wealth Distribution," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(4), pages 1491-1496, July.
    42. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    43. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Paolo Pasquariello & Guojun Wu, 2009. "Does Asymmetric Information Drive Capital Structure Decisions?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(8), pages 3211-3243, August.
    44. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2000. "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1441-1478.
    45. Gary Biglaiser & Jiadong Gu & Fei Li, 2025. "Information Acquisition and Product Differentiation Perception," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 1-34, August.
    46. Benjamin Hébert & Michael Woodford, 2021. "Neighborhood-Based Information Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(10), pages 3225-3255, October.
    47. Mark Dean & Nathaniel Neligh, 2023. "Experimental Tests of Rational Inattention," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(12), pages 3415-3461.
    48. Bidder, R.M. & Smith, M.E., 2012. "Robust animal spirits," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 738-750.
    49. Benjamin Handel & Joshua Schwartzstein, 2018. "Frictions or Mental Gaps: What's Behind the Information We (Don't) Use and When Do We Care?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 155-178, Winter.
    50. Christopher A. Sims, 2006. "Rational Inattention: Beyond the Linear-Quadratic Case," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 158-163, May.
    51. Christopher Chambers & Paul Healy, 2012. "Updating toward the signal," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(3), pages 765-786, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Yongheng Hu, 2025. "Heterogeneous Agents in the Data Economy," Papers 2509.09656, arXiv.org.
    2. 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.
    3. Anmol Bhandari & Jaroslav Borovička & Paul Ho, 2025. "Survey Data and Subjective Beliefs in Business Cycle Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(3), pages 1375-1437.
    4. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    5. Gondhi, Naveen, 2023. "Rational inattention, misallocation, and the aggregate economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 50-75.
    6. Walker-Jones, David, 2025. "Foundation and identification of multi-attribute Shannon entropy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 334-355.
    7. Yongheng Hu, 2025. "Analysis Theory of Data Economy: Dataization, Technological Progress and Dynamic General Equilibrium," Papers 2507.13274, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    8. Chen, Cheng & Senga, Tatsuro & Sun, Chang & Zhang, Hongyong, 2023. "Uncertainty, imperfect information, and expectation formation over the firm’s life cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 60-77.
    9. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot J., 2023. "On FIRE, news, and expectations," Working Papers 42, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    10. Conrad, Christian & Lahiri, Kajal, 2023. "Heterogeneous expectations among professional forecasters," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-062, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Bao, Te & Hommes, Cars & Pei, Jiaoying, 2021. "Expectation formation in finance and macroeconomics: A review of new experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    12. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Menkhoff, Manuel & Müller, Gernot & Niemann, Knut, 2022. "Firm Expectations and News: Micro v Macro," CEPR Discussion Papers 17768, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Han, Zhao, 2024. "Asymmetric information and misaligned inflation expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    14. Adrien Auclert & Ludwig Straub & Matthew Rognlie, 2019. "Micro Jumps, Macro Humps: monetary policy and business cycles in an estimated HANK model," 2019 Meeting Papers 1449, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Cheremukhin, Anton & Tutino, Antonella, 2016. "Information rigidities and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 142-158.
    16. 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.
    17. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. George-Marios Angeletos & Zhen Huo, 2021. "Myopia and Anchoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(4), pages 1166-1200, April.
    20. Flynn, Joel P. & Sastry, Karthik A., 2023. "Strategic mistakes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2508.20435. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.