IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bon/boncrc/crctr224_2023_385.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Status Quo and Belief Polarization of Inattentive Agents: Theory and Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Vladimir Novak
  • Andrei Matveenko
  • Silvio Ravaioli

Abstract

We show that rational but inattentive agents can become polarized ex-ante. We present how optimal information acquisition, and subsequent belief formation, depend crucially on the agent-specific status quo valuation. Beliefs can systematically - in expectations over all possible signal realizations conditional on the state of the world - update away from the realized truth and even agents with the same initial beliefs might become polarized. We design a laboratory experiment to test the model’s predictions. The results confirm our predictions about the mechanism (rational information acquisition), its effect on beliefs (systematic polarization) and provide general insights into demand for information.

Suggested Citation

  • Vladimir Novak & Andrei Matveenko & Silvio Ravaioli, 2023. "The Status Quo and Belief Polarization of Inattentive Agents: Theory and Experiment," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_385, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp385
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    2. Weber, Thomas A., 2003. "An exact relation between willingness to pay and willingness to accept," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 311-315, September.
    3. Paul Beaudry & Tim Willems, 2022. "On the Macroeconomic Consequences of Over-Optimism," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 38-59, January.
    4. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean & John Leahy, 2019. "Rational Inattention, Optimal Consideration Sets, and Stochastic Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 1061-1094.
    5. Amnon Maltz, 2020. "Exogenous Endowment-Endogenous Reference Point," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(625), pages 160-182.
    6. Thiemo Fetzer, 2019. "Did Austerity Cause Brexit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3849-3886, November.
    7. Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart & Filip Matějka, 2017. "Rational Inattention Dynamics: Inertia and Delay in Decision‐Making," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 521-553, March.
    8. Wing Suen, 2004. "The Self-Perpetuation of Biased Beliefs," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 377-396, April.
    9. Harrison, Glenn W. & Martínez-Correa, Jimmy & Swarthout, J. Todd, 2013. "Inducing risk neutral preferences with binary lotteries: A reconsideration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 145-159.
    10. 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.
    11. Lin Hu & Anqi Li & Ilya Segal, 2019. "The Politics of Personalized News Aggregation," Papers 1910.11405, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    12. Bernhardt, Dan & Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2008. "Political polarization and the electoral effects of media bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1092-1104, June.
    13. Santiago Oliveros & Felix Várdy, 2015. "Demand for Slant: How Abstention Shapes Voters' Choice of News Media," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1327-1368, September.
    14. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2012. "Categorize Then Choose: Boundedly Rational Choice And Welfare," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1141-1165, October.
    16. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    17. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Fabre, Adrien & Kruse, Tobias & Planterose, Bluebery & Chico, Ana Sanchez & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2022. "Fighting Climate Change: International Attitudes Toward Climate Policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 17602, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Roland G FryerJr & Philipp Harms & Matthew O Jackson, 2019. "Updating Beliefs when Evidence is Open to Interpretation: Implications for Bias and Polarization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1470-1501.
    19. Gary Charness & Ryan Oprea & Sevgi Yuksel, 2021. "How do People Choose Between Biased Information Sources? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1656-1691.
    20. Nimark, Kristoffer P. & Sundaresan, Savitar, 2019. "Inattention and belief polarization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 203-228.
    21. Yeon-Koo Che & Konrad Mierendorff, 2019. "Optimal Dynamic Allocation of Attention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2993-3029, August.
    22. Ambuehl, Sandro & Li, Shengwu, 2018. "Belief updating and the demand for information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 21-39.
    23. Navin Kartik & Frances Xu Lee & Wing Suen, 2021. "Information Validates the Prior: A Theorem on Bayesian Updating and Applications," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 165-182, June.
    24. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    25. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    26. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Efe A. Ok, 2014. "A Canonical Model of Choice with Initial Endowments," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 851-883.
    27. Frederick Mosteller & Philip Nogee, 1951. "An Experimental Measurement of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(5), pages 371-371.
    28. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse Shapiro & Matt Taddy, 2016. "Measuring Polarization in High-Dimensional Data: Method and Application to Congressional Speech," Working Papers id:11114, eSocialSciences.
    29. Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2008. "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633612, April.
    30. Guney, Begum & Richter, Michael & Tsur, Matan, 2018. "Aspiration-based choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 935-956.
    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. Li, Anqi & Hu, Lin, 2023. "Electoral accountability and selection with personalized information aggregation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 296-315.
    2. Sergei Mikhalishchev & Vladimir Novak, 2024. "Inattention, Stability, and Reform Reluctance," Working and Discussion Papers WP 8/2024, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    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.

    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. Philippe Jehiel & Jakub Steiner, 2020. "Selective Sampling with Information-Storage Constraints [On interim rationality, belief formation and learning in decision problems with bounded memory]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(630), pages 1753-1781.
    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. Özgür Kıbrıs & Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Elchin Suleymanov, 2023. "A theory of reference point formation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(1), pages 137-166, January.
    4. Nimark, Kristoffer P. & Sundaresan, Savitar, 2019. "Inattention and belief polarization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 203-228.
    5. Li, Anqi & Hu, Lin, 2023. "Electoral accountability and selection with personalized information aggregation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 296-315.
    6. Steiner, Jakub & Jehiel, Philippe, 2017. "On Second Thoughts, Selective Memory, and Resulting Behavioral Biases," CEPR Discussion Papers 12546, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Miguel Costa-Gomes & Georgios Gerasimou, 2020. "Status Quo Bias and the Decoy Effect: A Comparative Analysis in Choice under Risk," Papers 2006.14868, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    8. George Loewenstein & Zachary Wojtowicz, 2023. "The Economics of Attention," CESifo Working Paper Series 10712, CESifo.
    9. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    10. Lindbeck, Assar & Weibull, Jörgen, 2020. "Delegation of investment decisions, and optimal remuneration of agents," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    11. Dewan, Ambuj & Neligh, Nathaniel, 2020. "Estimating information cost functions in models of rational inattention," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    12. Bertoli, Simone & Moraga, Jesús Fernández-Huertas & Guichard, Lucas, 2020. "Rational inattention and migration decisions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. S. Cerreia-Vioglio & F. Maccheroni & M. Marinacci & A. Rustichini, 2017. "Multinomial logit processes and preference discovery: inside and outside the black box," Working Papers 615, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    14. Cheng, Ing-Haw & Hsiaw, Alice, 2022. "Distrust in experts and the origins of disagreement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    15. Ilinov, Pavel & Jann, Ole, 2022. "An equivalence between rational inattention problems and complete-information conformity games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    16. Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart & Filip Matějka, 2017. "Rational Inattention Dynamics: Inertia and Delay in Decision‐Making," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 521-553, March.
    17. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. 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.
    19. Ghossoub, Mario, 2011. "Towards a Purely Behavioral Definition of Loss Aversion," MPRA Paper 37628, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Mar 2012.
    20. Eszter Czibor & Danny Hsu & David Jimenez-Gomez & Susanne Neckermann & Burcu Subasi, 2022. "Loss-Framed Incentives and Employee (Mis-)Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7518-7537, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Polarization; Beliefs Updating; Rational Inattention; Status Quo; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_385. 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: CRC Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.crctr224.de .

    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.