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Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 63 No. 3 2025

The Economics of Attention

George Loewenstein1; Zachary Wojtowicz2

1 Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University. · 2 Department of Economics and Department of Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets, Harvard University.

Abstract

Attention is an important resource in the modern economy and plays an increasingly prominent role in economic analysis. We summarize research on attention from both psychology and economics with a particular emphasis on its capacity to explain documented violations of classical economic theory. We also identify promising new directions for research, including attention-based utility, the recent proliferation of attentional externalities introduced by digital technology, the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the economics of attention, and the significant role that boredom, curiosity, and other motivational states play in determining how people allocate attention.

DOI
10.1257/jel.20241665
Volume
63
Issue
3
Pages
1038-1089
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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