A Communication Model with Limited Information-Processing Capacity of Recipients

摘要

This paper offers a computational model of profit-driven communication, when information-processing capacity of recipients is limited. Even though the model was inspired by the present situation in the direct online marketing industry, it has a wide applicability. In the model, profit-seeking communication firms exploit freely-available attention of recipients, while recipients allocate their limited cognitive capacity between competing tasks. We run numerical experiments to test various technical, market and regulatory proposals that aim at improving the social outcome. The paper makes a theoretical contribution to the economic literature and it also elucidates the current public policy debate about direct online marketing industry.