saliencegames16EJtypesetFINALfull.pdf (325.28 kB)
Competing for attention: is the showiest also the best?
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 08:42 authored by Paola Manzini, Marco MariottiThere are many situations in which alternatives ranked by quality wish to be chosen and compete for the imperfect attention of a chooser by selecting their own salience. The chooser may be "tricked" into choosing more salient but inferior alternatives. We investigate when competitive forces ensure instead that (strictly) higher salience is diagnostic of (strictly) higher quality, and the most frequently chosen alternative is the best one. We prove that the structure of externalities in the technology of salience is key. Broadly speaking, positive externalities in salience favour correlation between quality and salience.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Economic JournalISSN
0013-0133Publisher
Wiley-BlackwellExternal DOI
Issue
609Volume
128Page range
827-844Department affiliated with
- Economics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-11-07First Open Access (FOA) Date
2019-04-26First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-11-07Usage metrics
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