Jake Embrey

Principal Researcher

University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

vita

jake.embrey@chicagobooth.edu

I am currently a Principal Researcher at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business working in the marketing department.

My primary research topic is on the ‘cost of thinking’. I’m interested in why people are averse to cognitively demanding tasks and avoid exerting what we colloquially call mental effort. My work aims to understand why effort is costly and how so-called cognitive costs influence people’s behaviour.

In the consumer behaviour domain I apply this approach to online product search. In particular how cognitive costs influence search behaviour and whether complexity increases search costs for consumers. My job market paper, titled ‘Cognitive costs in consumer search’ investigates how complexity affects search costs by employing the Weitzman sequential search model as an optimal benchmark.

Other research interests involve information seeking, financial decision-making, and how AI affects the paradoxical relationship people have with their mental labour (we avoid effort, but simultaneously derive value from it).

I am currently on the job market. You can view my job market paper below (the top paper).