IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kea/keappr/ker-20130630-29-1-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of Curiosity

Author

Listed:
  • Jeong-Yoo Kim, Haeree Lee, Insik Min

    (Kyung Hee University, Columbia University, Kyung Hee University)

Abstract

We develop the hypothesis that an individual can get some value of information, even if they do not use the information for his subsequent decision, contrary to the expected utility theory. Curiosity is associated with the direct utility from information and is defined formally by using the concept of entropy. We can measure an agent's curiosity level by the maximum amount of money that he is willing to pay in order to obtain the information thereby reducing the entropy. We test the hypothesis from lab experiments and obtain the empirical evidence that people are actually willing to pay a positive amount of money to obtain payoff-irrelevant information. Also, the comparison of the coefficients of variation for our curiosity measure and the IPI (Imaginal Processes Inventory) curiosity measure which is widely used in psychology suggests that our measure is more informative.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeong-Yoo Kim, Haeree Lee, Insik Min, 2013. "The Economics of Curiosity," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 29, pages 23-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:kea:keappr:ker-20130630-29-1-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://keapaper.kea.ne.kr/RePEc/kea/keappr/KER-20130630-29-1-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob Marschak, 1959. "Remarks on the Economics of Information," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 70, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-574, September.
    3. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto, 2019. "When collective ignorance is bliss: Theory and experiment on voting for learning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 52-64.
    2. Piergiuseppe Morone, 2004. "Investigating The Effects Of Information On Income Distribution Using Experimental Data," Experimental 0407006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Andrea Morone, 2008. "Financial markets in the laboratory: an experimental analysis of some stylized facts," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(5), pages 513-532.
    4. Cox, Caleb & Davis, Douglas & Korenok, Oleg & Lightle, John, 2023. "Stress tests and information disclosure: An experimental analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Ruiz-Buforn, Alba & Camacho-Cuena, Eva & Morone, Andrea & Alfarano, Simone, 2021. "Overweighting of public information in financial markets: A lesson from the lab," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    6. David Bardey & Philippe De Donder & Cesar Mantilla, 2014. "Adverse Selection vs Discrimination Risk with Genetic Testing. An Experimental Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 5080, CESifo.
    7. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Choo, Lawrence & Fonseca, Miguel A. & Kaplan, Todd R., 2021. "Should regulators always be transparent? a bank run experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    8. Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2018. "Does Imperfect Data Privacy Stop People from Collecting Personal Data?," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, March.
    9. Tomas Miklanek, 2017. "Ego-utility and Endogenous Information Acquisition; An Experimental Study," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp582, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Klijn, Flip & Pais, Joana & Vorsatz, Marc, 2019. "Static versus dynamic deferred acceptance in school choice: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 147-163.
    11. Ederer, Florian & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2017. "Promises and expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 161-178.
    12. König, Philipp J. & Pothier, David, 2018. "Safe but fragile: Information acquisition, sponsor support and shadow bank runs," Discussion Papers 15/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    13. Bosch-Domènech, Antoni & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2013. "On the role of non-equilibrium focal points as coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 52-67.
    14. Eva M. Krockow & Masanori Takezawa & Briony D. Pulford & Andrew M. Colman & Samuel Smithers & Toshimasa Kita & Yo Nakawake, 2018. "Commitment-enhancing tools in Centipede games: Evidencing European–Japanese differences in trust and cooperation," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(1), pages 61-72, January.
    15. Wendelin Schnedler & Nina Lucia Stephan, 2020. "Revisiting a Remedy Against Chains of Unkindness," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 72(3), pages 347-364, July.
    16. Kyung Hwan Baik & Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2021. "Group size and matching protocol in contests," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 1716-1736, November.
    17. Radu Vranceanu & Damien Besancenot & Delphine Dubart, 2014. "Can Rumors and Other Uninformative Messages Cause Illiquidity ?," CEPN Working Papers hal-00841167, HAL.
    18. Basteck, Christian & Klaus, Bettina & Kübler, Dorothea, 2021. "How lotteries in school choice help to level the playing field," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 198-237.
    19. Ertac, Seda & Gumren, Mert & Gurdal, Mehmet Y., 2020. "Demand for decision autonomy and the desire to avoid responsibility in risky environments: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    20. Heine Klaus & Mause Karsten, 2003. "Politikberatung als informationsökonomisches Problem," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 223(4), pages 479-490, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Curiosity; Entropy; Shannon Value;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kea:keappr:ker-20130630-29-1-02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: KEA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/keaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.