Attention Allocation and Economic Decision-making—— Comment and Discussion on Attention Economics

Over the last two decades,attention economics has emerged as a novel subfield within the realm of economics.Attention economics results from interdisciplinary research encompassing economics,cognitive psychology,and neuroscience.Its primary focus lies in examining the process and nature of individual decision-making.It posits that this process fundamentally entails gathering,processing,and interpreting information within the brain.Faced with copious information and diverse uncertain constraints alongside constrained cognitive resources,the brain employs attention allocation to sift through and prioritize information,thereby disregarding extraneous data.Through the processing of the filtered information,individuals develop their rational and preference structure,which subsequently shapes their behavior and ensuing outcomes.Attention economics has opened up the black box of individual decision-making,representing a substantial advancement within the framework of limited rationality hypothesis and social preference theory.It provides a more microscopic scientific-theoretical underpinning for contemporary behavioral economics,and by extension,economics as a whole.