Attention trade-offs mirror economic allocation between countervailing externalities. [connection]
Economists may find the situation reminiscent of two producers who both allocate their limited productive resources between two commodities. One commodity, “security against false alarm,” involves external economies; the other, “security against surprise,” involves external diseconomies.
XREF: Plainly connects cognitive attention allocation to microeconomic production theory and externalities.
Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 827