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The Ostrich in Us: Selective Attention to Financial Accounts, Income, Spending, and Liquidity

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  • Arna Olafsson
  • Michaela Pagel

Abstract

We analyze attention to personal financial accounts using panel data that includes logins, spending, income, balances, and credit limits. We find that income arrivals cause individuals to log in and that attention is positively correlated with cash holdings and liquidity, is negatively correlated with consumer debt holdings, and increases when bank account balances change from negative to positive. We discuss how our findings relate to theories of rational and selective inattention and conclude that ostrich effects in a personal finance context, i.e., the fear of paying attention to bank account balances, is a more widespread phenomenon than previously thought.

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  • Arna Olafsson & Michaela Pagel, 2017. "The Ostrich in Us: Selective Attention to Financial Accounts, Income, Spending, and Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 23945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23945
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    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    2. Arnold, Marc & Pelster, Matthias & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2022. "Attention triggers and investors’ risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 846-875.
    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. Pierre Bachas & Paul Gertler & Sean Higgins & Enrique Seira, 2021. "How Debit Cards Enable the Poor to Save More," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 1913-1957, August.
    5. Asger Lau Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Adam Sheridan, 2021. "Dynamic Spending Responses to Wealth Shocks: Evidence from Quasi-lotteries on the Stock Market," CEBI working paper series 21-11, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    6. Olafsson, Arna & Gathergood, John, 2020. "The Co-holding Puzzle: New Evidence from Transaction-Level Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 14799, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Nemeczek, Fabian & Radermacher, Jan, 2022. "Personality-augmented MPC: Linking survey and transaction data to explain MPC heterogeneity by Big Five personality traits," SAFE Working Paper Series 348, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    8. Anne Marie Garvey & Laura Parte & Bridget McNally & José Antonio Gonzalo-Angulo, 2021. "True and Fair Override: Accounting Expert Opinions, Explanations from Behavioural Theories, and Discussions for Sustainability Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, February.
    9. Paul D. Adams & Stefan Hunt & Christopher Palmer & Redis Zaliauskas, 2019. "Testing the Effectiveness of Consumer Financial Disclosure: Experimental Evidence from Savings Accounts," NBER Working Papers 25718, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sean Hundtofte & Arna Olafsson & Michaela Pagel, 2019. "Credit Smoothing," NBER Working Papers 26354, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Recent Advances in Studies of News Consumption," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 204, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    12. Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Attention Utility: Evidence from Individual Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 8091, CESifo.
    13. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel, 2020. "The Consumption Effects of the Disposition to Sell Winners and Hold Losers," NBER Working Papers 26668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Russell Golman & George Loewenstein & Andras Molnar & Silvia Saccardo, 2022. "The Demand for, and Avoidance of, Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6454-6476, September.
    16. Cookson, J. Anthony & Engelberg, Joseph E. & Mullins, William, 2020. "Echo Chambers," SocArXiv n2q9h, Center for Open Science.
    17. Campbell, Daniel & Grant, Andrew & Thorp, Susan, 2022. "Reducing credit card delinquency using repayment reminders," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    18. Adams, Paul & Hunt, Stefan & Palmer, Christopher & Zaliauskas, Redis, 2021. "Testing the effectiveness of consumer financial disclosure: Experimental evidence from savings accounts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 122-147.
    19. Delis, Manthos & Galariotis, Emilios & Monne, Jerome, 2021. "Financial vulnerability and seeking expert advice: Evidence from a survey experiment," MPRA Paper 107095, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Gao, Pengjie & Hu, Allen & Kelly, Peter & Peng, Cameron & Zhu, Ning, 2020. "Exploited by complexity," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118867, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

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