Adam Smith Business School

Professor Andy Zapechelnyuk, University of Edinburgh

"Optimal Inquiry"
Tuesday, 19 November 2024. 16:00-17:30
Room 709A, Boyd Orr Building

Abstract

A decision maker acquires and processes information about an uncertain state of nature by an inquiry: a contingent sequence of questions to be asked before a decision is reached. Inquiry is a costly activity, with the cost proportional to its length. We characterize optimal inquiries and uncover two behavioral implications associated with costly inquiry: attention span reduction (i.e., favoring shorter inquiries by focusing on a subset of decisions and assigning them different priorities) and confirmation bias (i.e., seeking evidence through inquiry to confirm a prior guess of which decisions are optimal). This framework can be used to understand prominent cognitive biases, such as framing and search satisficing in healthcare and tunnel vision in criminal investigation.

Bio

I am a Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh. I serve as an Associate Editor for Econometrica and Economic Theory/ETB. My research interests lie in the field of microeconomic theory and applications, focusing on communication and information design, optimal contracts, and robust decision theory. I got a PhD from Stony Brook University in 2005. Before landing at Edinburgh in 2022, I spent some time as a researcher at the Center for the Study of Rationality (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (University of Bonn), and I have taught at Kyiv School of Economics, Queen Mary University of London, University of Glasgow, and University of St Andrews.

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First published: 8 October 2024