| I present a series of essays on applied microeconomics. The first chapter is a study of advertising to consumers with limited memories and bounded recall. I provide a model and show that it can explain the persistent advertising of familiar brands as well as the tendency for advertising levels to "pulse" or oscillate at high frequencies. The second chapter, written jointly with Daniel J. Benjamin, is an empirical study of the impact of cognitive ability on economic decision-making. We show that individuals with higher cognitive ability behave in a manner more consistent with standard economic models of decision-making, but that even at the highest levels of measured ability significant biases persist. The third chapter, written jointly with Matthew Gentzkow, considers the theoretical question of how media firms choose the political slant of their news coverage. We show that the presence of reputational concerns is sufficient to generate bias in the direction of consumers' prior beliefs, and that competition and ex-post feedback tend to reduce bias. |
