The ‘Economics of Attention’: A History of Economic Thought Perspective

Abstract

This article takes stock of the increasing interest that the economic profession has shown for the role of attention in our economies this last decade. It also highlights that the concept of attention is an old issue in social sciences and that it has been central for those economists of the past most interested in the relation between the functioning of the brain beyond mere economic rationality and economic decisions. This exercise provides then the opportunity to investigate today’s literature on the economics of attention in comparative as well as critical terms. Finally, the article attempts to look ahead in the context of the rising influence of behavioural economics and address issues at stake in order to capture all the dimensions of human attention and their implications for the understanding and analysis of economic phenomena.

Keywords

• economics of attention
• rationality
• economic psychology
• cognitive economics