Evolutionary, Social, and Strategic Aspects of limited Attention and Economic Policy Implications

Project Information

LIMITED_ATTENTION

Grant agreement ID: 322253

Project closed

Start date 1 August 2012

End date 31 July 2016

Funded under

• Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Total cost € 100 000,00

EU contribution € 100 000,00

Coordinated by

OTTO-FRIEDRICH-UNIVERSITAET BAMBERG
Germany

Objective

Attention is a scarce cognitive resource. How economic agents allocate their LIMITED ATTENTION has profound implication for economic policy. Investors may not pay attention to differences in country specific default risks in sovereign debt until something triggers attention to this issue. Then we might change from a good equilibrium of sustainable debt to bad equilibrium of default. Consumers may not be able to pay attention to all details and become vulnerable to exploitation by strategic agents. Voters’ limited attention influences elections and ultimately public policies.
This project seeks a deeper understanding of LIMITED ATTENTION and its economic consequences. Part 1 investigates the evolutionary foundations of limited attention, seeking a better understanding of the evolution of allocating limited attention. Furthermore, we consider in how far limited cognition can provided a framework for an evolutionary foundations of prospect theory, particularly for probability weighting. In addition, we investigate the evolution of paying attention to different characteristics. Part 2 focuses on social and strategic aspects of allocating limited attention and the implications for public policy. When is paying attention a strategic complement (i.e. you want to pay attention to an issue when others pay attention to it) and when a strategic substitute (i.e. if other pay attention to this issue, you can focus your attention on other things)? How might attentive players exploit inattentive players and how can inattentive agents protect themselves. A better understanding of these strategic aspects of limited attention will have important positive and normative implications for public policy and interesting applications as illustrated in the previous examples.
The project is a crucial part of reintegrating the researcher into the European research network, facilitating joint work with his coauthors across Europe, and keeping his international connections and collaborations.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• social sciences › political sciences › political policies › public policies
• social sciences › political sciences › political transitions › elections

You need to log in or register to use this function

Programme(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG - Marie-Curie Action: "Career Integration Grants"

Call for proposal

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-CIG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

MC-CIG - Support for training and career development of researcher (CIG)

Coordinator

OTTO-FRIEDRICH-UNIVERSITAET BAMBERG

• EU contribution: € 100 000,00
• Address: KAPUZINERSTRASSE 16 ; 96047 Bamberg ; Germany
• Region: Bayern › Oberfranken › Bamberg, Kreisfreie Stadt
• Activity type: Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
• Total cost: No data