"The falling costs of collecting, storing, and processing data have allowed firms and governments to improve products and services. These same changes have also yielded databases containing detailed, individual-level data, raising privacy concerns. The Economics of Privacy summarizes the...

In this paper we build a formal model to study market environments where information is costly to acquire and is of use also to potential competitors. In such situations a market for information may form, where reports - of unverifiable quality - over the information acquired are sold. A...

I study how policymakers can access and act on the information about climate change damages that is dispersed throughout the economy. I analyze a new dynamic deposit-refund instrument (called "carbon shares") that I show can: i) efficiently price emissions conditional on information, ii)...

We survey a recent and growing literature on markets for information. We offer a comprehensive view of information markets through an integrated model of consumers, information intermediaries, and firms. The model embeds a large set of applications ranging from sponsored search advertising to...

This paper reports on experiments testing the viability of markets for cheap talk information. We find that the poor quality of the information transmitted leads to a collapse of information markets. The reasons for this are surprising given the previous experimental results on cheap-talk games....

This paper reports on experiments testing the viability of markets for cheap talk information. We find that the poor quality of the information transmitted leads to a collapse of information markets. The reasons for this are surprising given the previous experimental results on cheap-talk games....

We examine the impact of public information on firms’ disclosure strategies. We portray two regimes based on a model that extends the setting of Dye (1985) and Jung and Kwon (1988). In the first regime, the firm is able to respond to public information and thus has the last word, and in the...

Prediction market prices are often used as estimates of the probability of outcomes in future elections and referendums. I argue that this practice is often flawed, and I develop a model that empiricists can use to partially identify probabilities from prediction market prices. In the special...

Information markets are inefficient. Information products have large upfront development costs, yet their duplication costs are negligibly small; and they are experience goods with high costs of marketing and promotion. As a result, either winner-take-all markets are created through large and...

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for information goods under incomplete information, when both unlimited-usage (fixed-fee) pricing and usage-based pricing are feasible, and administering usage-based pricing may involve transaction costs. It is shown that offering fixed-fee pricing in addition...

Fokus dieser Arbeit ist es ein tiefergehendes Verständnis über den Einfluss von kognitiven Verzerrungen auf die Innovationsbewertung mit Informationsmärkten zu schaffen. Hierfür wird der Einfluss von Selbstüberschätzung auf die Innovationsbewertung mit Informationsmärkten in zwei...

We survey a recent and growing literature on markets for information. We offer a comprehensive view of information markets through an integrated model of consumers, information intermediaries, and firms. The model embeds a large set of applications ranging from sponsored-search advertising to...

Vast amounts of information result from business and consumer search, communication, and transactions. All this information can enhance market efficiency and consumer surplus as firms tailor products to buyers. But, there is increased risk of information loss. What issues should be on the...

Informationen sind anders als normale, insbesondere private Güter, was bei der ökonomischen Analyse zu berücksichtigen ist. An den Beispielen Wissenschaft und Internet werden einige Besonderheiten von Informationen vorgestellt und Folgerungen daraus gezogen.

The Internet changes everything. It has become more than a simple and an effective way to exchange emails and documents, it is emerging as a critical backbone of commerce. And, it is happening at a faster pace than many thought possible and with which few feel comfortable. And in these heady...

The US Postal Service suffered a $5B loss in FY 2013 following on a $15.9B loss the year before. One of the challenges has been the diversion of revenues from physical ad mail to online channels such as Google and Facebook. This paper articulates the design of an information market that could...

Vast amounts of information result from business and consumer search, communication, and transactions. All this information can enhance market efficiency and consumer surplus as firms tailor products to buyers. But, there is increased risk of information loss. What issues should be on the...

We used Wall Street Journal survey data for the period 2006 - 2010 to analyze whether forecasts of house prices and housing starts provide evidence of (anti-)herding of forecasters. Forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding) of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from)...

We used Wall Street Journal survey data for the period 2006 - 2010 to analyze whether forecasts of house prices and housing starts provide evidence of (anti-)herding of forecasters. Forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding) of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from)...

"Markets run on information. Buyers make decisions by relying on their knowledge of the products available, and sellers decide what to produce based on their understanding of what buyers want. But the distribution of market information has changed, as consumers increasingly turn to sources that...

People often make important decisions based on information elicited from experts with uncertain preferences. We provide a theoretical rationale for the use of information markets in decision making tasks. Specifically, we show that markets for claims on decision-relevant variables can be...

Prediction (or information) markets are markets where participants trade contracts whose payoff depends on unknown future events. Studying prediction markets allows to avoid many problems, which arise in some artificially designed behavioral experiments investigating collective decision making...

Politicians may pander to public opinion and may renounce undertaking beneficial long-term projects. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to...

Information markets are markets for contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of an uncertain future event. They are used to predict a wide range of events, from presidential elections to printer sales. These markets frequently outperform both experts and opinion polls, and many...

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for information goods under incomplete information,when both unlimited-usage (fixed-fee) pricing and usage-based pricing are feasible. For ageneral set of customer characteristics, it is shown that in the presence of contract administrationcosts, offering...