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The social value of information with an endogenous public signal

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  • Anna Bayona

    (Universitat Ramon Llull)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the equilibrium and welfare properties of an economy characterized by uncertainty and payoff externalities using a general model that nests several applications. Agents receive a private signal and an endogenous public signal, which is a noisy aggregate of individual actions, and causes an information externality. Agents in equilibrium underweight private information for a larger payoff parameter region in relation to when public information is exogenous. In addition, the socially optimal endogenous degree of coordination is lower than the socially optimal exogenous degree of coordination. The welfare effect of increasing the precision of the noise in the public signal has the same sign with endogenous or exogenous public information, but its magnitude differs. The social value of private information may be overturned in relation to when public information is exogenous: from positive to negative if agents in equilibrium coordinate more than is implied by the socially optimal exogenous degree of coordination, and the opposite if they coordinate less.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Bayona, 2018. "The social value of information with an endogenous public signal," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(4), pages 1059-1087, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:66:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s00199-017-1081-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-017-1081-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Romain Baeriswyl & Camille Cornand & Bruno Ziliotto, 2020. "Observing and Shaping the Market: The Dilemma of Central Banks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(8), pages 1973-2005, December.
    3. Boun My, Kene & Cornand, Camille & Dos Santos Ferreira, Rodolphe, 2021. "Public information and the concern for coordination," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Giuseppe Pignataro & Giovanni Prarolo, 2020. "Learning, proximity and voting: theory and empirical evidence from nuclear referenda," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 117-147, June.
    5. Bizzarri, Matteo & d’Arienzo, Daniele, 2024. "The social value of overreaction to information," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    6. Jihad C. Elnaboulsi & Wassim Daher & Yiğit Sağlam, 2023. "Environmental taxation, information precision, and information sharing," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(2), pages 301-341, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Payoff externalities; Information externalities; Rational expectations equilibrium; Private information; Welfare analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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