Salience

Abstract

We review the fast-growing work on salience and economic behavior. Psychological research shows that salient stimuli attract human attention bottom up due to their high contrast with surroundings, their surprising nature relative to recalled experiences, or their prominence. The Bordalo, Gennaioli & Shleifer (2012 , 2013b , 2020 ) models of salience show how bottom-up attention can distort economic choice by distracting decision makers from their immediate goals or from relevant choice attributes. This approach unifies probability weighting, menu effects, reference points, and framing as distinct manifestations of bottom-up attention. We highlight new predictions and discuss open conceptual questions, as well as potential applications in finance, industrial organization, advertising, and politics.