Economic Analysis and Information in a Dynamic Setting

动态环境中的经济分析和信息

• 批准号: 8711265
• 负责人: Leonard Mirman
• 金额: $ 9.29万
• 依托单位: University of Virginia Main Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1987
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1987-12-15 至 1990-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8711265&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Economic; Analysis; Information; Dynamic; Setting

It is now widely recognized that the acquisition of information plays a key role in real world economies as well as in theoretical economic analyses. This project studies experimentation by consumers and firms with different decisions to acquire better information for future decisions. For example, firms will choose output levels above or below what they think is profit maximizing in order to test and improve their information about the market. This type of experimentation is widely observed but is not adequately explained by existing economic theory. This project will help improve our understanding of experimentation by consumers and by producers by formulating general models of information acquisition through experimentation and analyzing the comparative statics and the existence of solutions to these models. Specifically, the project studies a maximizing consumer who chooses output to get both present utility and better information for making future decisions. Preliminary results show that consumption with experimentation will be greater than myopically optimal levels of consumption. But these results depend on very restrictive assumptions about consumer uncertainty. This project relaxes these assumptions in order to find more general and realistic results and to examine interesting special cases. The project deals with models of entry in which the incumbent firm has more information than potential entrants. Preliminary work by the investigator demonstrates that the incumbent firm can discourage new entrants by producing more than the output that maximizes current profits. This result holds even when the potential entrants know that the incumbent firm is trying to persuade them through its pricing and output policies that the industry is less profitable than it actually is. These entry models assume that potential entrants choose either to enter or not. This project analyzes the much more complicated but also more realistic situation in which potential entrants can test the market by output decisions.

现在人们普遍认识到，信息获取在现实世界经济以及理论经济分析中发挥着关键作用。 该项目研究消费者和企业做出不同决策的实验，以便为未来决策获取更好的信息。 例如，公司会选择高于或低于他们认为的利润最大化的产出水平，以测试和改进他们的市场信息。 这种类型的实验被广泛观察，但现有的经济理论并未充分解释。 该项目将通过实验制定信息获取的一般模型，并分析比较静态数据和这些模型的解决方案的存在性，从而帮助提高我们对消费者和生产者实验的理解。 具体来说，该项目研究了一个最大化消费者，他选择输出以获得当前效用和更好的信息以做出未来决策。 初步结果表明，经过实验的消费将高于短视的最佳消费水平。 但这些结果取决于对消费者不确定性的非常严格的假设。 该项目放宽了这些假设，以便找到更普遍和更现实的结果并检查有趣的特殊情况。 该项目涉及的进入模式是现有公司比潜在进入者拥有更多信息。 调查人员的初步工作表明，现有企业可以通过生产超过当前利润最大化的产出来阻止新进入者。 即使潜在进入者知道现有公司正试图通过其定价和产出政策说服他们该行业的利润低于实际水平，这一结果仍然成立。 这些进入模型假设潜在进入者选择进入或不进入。 该项目分析了更复杂但也更现实的情况，潜在进入者可以通过产量决策来测试市场。