Sticky Information
Updated 2026-08-02
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Developed by the economists Gregory Mankiw and Ricardo Reis, sticky information describes information that is costly to obtain, process, and act on, so decision-makers update their plans only intermittently. The concept explains price and wage rigidity without assuming that people are irrational: they are simply not continuously re-optimizing with fresh data. In organizations, tacit knowledge held by experienced practitioners is a form of sticky information that resists transfer to headquarters. Key qualification: stickiness concerns the cost of updating, not the availability of the information itself.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Locate the cost: identify which information is expensive to gather, transmit, or act upon. - Push decisions down: give authority to whoever already holds the sticky knowledge. - Expect lag: predict delayed adjustment rather than an instant response to new conditions.
Anchor fast decisions
If acquiring and processing information is costly, people update their plans only every few periods, so their decisions reflect outdated conditions. Aggregated across many actors, this staggered updating produces slow adjustment and persistent gaps between prices or wages and the conditions they should reflect. The rigidity comes from the cost of updating rather than from any unwillingness to change.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_informationverified
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