Cost-Benefit Analysis in Reasoning: The Value-of-Information Case with Forward-Looking Agent

• Authors: Larbi Alaoui and Antonio Penta
• BSE Working Paper: 1266 | February 2026
• Keywords: Choice theory, value of information, cognition and incentives, reasoning, fact-free learning, sequential heuristics, forward looking, Bayesian consistency
• JEL codes: D01, D03, D80, D83

We extend the baseline setting in Alaoui and Penta (2018) to provide the representation of the cost-benefit analysis in reasoning of a (non-myopic) forward looking agent who anticipates his future steps of reasoning to take the form of a partitional information structure evaluated in a Bayesian-consistent way.