This paper examines how individuals with limited attention allocate their information consumption across neutral and biased news sources. I develop a model in which agents rationally choose a portfolio of outlets to learn about an uncertain state of the world. While confirmation bias emerges as the benchmark outcome when only biased sources are available, the presence of a sufficiently precise neutral source fundamentally alters optimal information acquisition. Neutral sources do not merely moderate beliefs: they restructure the informational value of biased outlets. In particular, agents with weak prior beliefs may optimally combine neutral sources with sources opposing their prior views. This portfolio exploits an asymmetric complementarity between reliable neutral information and the possibility of immediate uncertainty resolution provided by opposing sources, leading to sharp posterior beliefs without requiring any intrinsic preference for disagreement.
Distorting Attention: Platform Design, Market Complexity, and the Balance Between Advertising and Fees
Dnešní digitální tržiště ovládají nejen strukturu poplatků, ale i informační toky. Tento článek popisuje platformu, jež současně optimalizuje dva zdroje příjmů: transakční poplatek a monetizaci pozornosti uživatelů. Kupující modeluji jako racionálně nepozorné aktéry, kteří strategicky alokují omezené kognitivní zdroje k získávání informací o kvalitě produktu. Platforma čelí zásadnímu kompromisu: zvýšení nákladů na informace (ceny pozornosti) prostřednictvím reklamní zátěže může zvýšit okamžité příjmy a zabránit tomu, aby kupující odmítali nízkokvalitní produkty, zároveň však může „zamlžovat“ trh, odrazovat od vyhledávání a snižovat příjmy z transakčních poplatků.
Why No Tomorrow? Cognitive Costs, Beliefs, and Failure to Plan
This paper studies sequential decision-making under cognitive costs. Motivated by experimental evidence showing systematic failure to plan, I develop a model in which
agents optimally choose whether to inspect future opportunities. The model characterizes the value of information in a setting with indivisible consumption choices and a binding budget constraint. I show that agents may rationally ignore future opportunities when the expected value of information is low relative to cognitive costs, generating behavior that resembles impatience. The model yields closed-form expressions for continuation values and admits a tractable decomposition of the value of information. A calibrated version matches experimental patterns.
Categorization and Reference-Dependent Decision-Making under Statutory Thresholds: Evidence from a Criminal Law Reform
Sentencing ranges can influence judicial decision-making through multiple behavioral channels. This paper studies a reform of the nominal damage thresholds classifying theft offenses into statutory categories. As a result of this reform, some offenses were moved to less serious categories, facing reduced sentencing ranges (e.g., from 2–8 to 1–5 years of imprisonment), while for others the formal range remained unchanged (e.g., 1–5 years) but the category was expanded to include more severe cases. I find that judges impose significantly shorter prison sentences both for offenses with explicitly lowered sentencing ranges and for offenses whose statutory ranges remained unchanged yet came to encompass more severe conduct. The findings provide evidence for two distinct mechanisms: a severity channel, whereby sentencing ranges signal the legislator’s assessment of offense seriousness, and a reference channel, whereby judges evaluate cases relative to other offenses within the same statutory range. The findings demonstrate that sentencing range reforms can have broader and more nuanced effects than those implied by formal changes in statutory minimums and maximums alone. More broadly, the paper highlights the importance of reference-based judicial reasoning in the development and assessment of sentencing policy.
