Geneva Graduate Institute, Maison de la paix, Room S4
As part of the Vilfredo Pareto Research Seminar series, the International Economics Department at the Geneva Graduate Institute is pleased to invite you to a public talk given by Anca Balietti of Heidelberg University
Abstract: When useful information provokes negative emotion, it may deliberately be ignored. We experimentally investigate whether increasing perceived control can mitigate such strategic ignorance. Participants from India were presented with a choice to receive information about the average loss of life expectancy due to air pollution in their district and were later asked to recall it. We find that an increase in perceived control substantially improves information recall, an effect driven by individuals with optimistic prior beliefs. We conduct the same experiment in the US and confirm this latter result. A theoretical framework rationalizes our findings.
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