Privacy and Information Acquisition in Competitive Markets

竞争市场中的隐私和信息获取近年来，几乎在信息技术的各个方面都取得了巨大的进步，包括：存储、处理和传输。1988年至2000年间，1gb硬盘存储的成本从11,500美元左右降至1美元左右。1989年至2000年间，标准PC主板上的晶体管数量增加了42倍。1990年至1998年间，互联网上的节点数量从31.3万个增加到2967万个。信息技术的这种创新使许多行业发生了革命性的变化。它们重塑了现代经济，深刻地影响了社会。它们为新的商品和服务带来了新的市场，同时也产生了对公共政策问题的新的关切。这个项目的核心问题是信息技术革命对个人隐私的影响。过去15年来，信息技术的巨大进步既带来了社会效益，也带来了社会成本。这些好处来自更有效地分配商品和服务以及工作分配。例如，保险政策、债务合同和公寓租赁可以根据潜在客户的特点进行调整。同样，就业和大学录取通知书可以更好地与申请人的技能和资质相匹配。然而，增加信息获取有两个代价。首先，涉及数据的收集、存储和处理的直接资源成本是显而易见的。其次，个人隐私要付出代价。具体来说，虽然消费者和/或潜在雇员通常愿意透露一些个人信息，以获得更有利的合同条款，但公司在筛选应聘者时往往没有有效收集信息的动机。特别是，当企业的数据收集努力是不可观察的（因此是不可收缩的）时，信息获取的边际社会效益和边际私人效益之间的分歧就会出现。在信息获取与寻找申请者的“坏消息”相对应的环境中，边际私人利益通常更大，导致公司拒绝太多的申请者。相比之下，在信息获取对应于搜索“好消息”的环境中，筛选的边际个人效益低于边际社会效益，并且批准的申请人太少。因此，公司有动机过于努力地寻找应聘者的坏消息，而不够努力地寻找好消息。这个项目将调查在各种市场环境中信息获取的私人利益和社会利益之间的这种根本分歧所产生的经济后果。将分析隐私权的分配、价格和准入歧视以及交易关系的效率等问题。

Privacy and Information Acquisition in Competitive MarketsRecent years have witnessed dramatic advances in virtually all aspects of information technology including: storage, processing, and transmission. Between 1988 and 2000, the cost of a gigabyte of hard disk storage fell from about $11,500 to around a dollar. Between 1989 and 2000, the number of transistors on a standard PC mother board increased by a factor of 42. Between 1990 and 1998, the number of nodes on the Internet increased from 313,000 to 29,670,000. Such innovations in information technology have revolutionized many industries. They have reshaped modern economies and profoundly impacted society. They have given rise to new markets for new goods and services while at the same time spawning new concerns regarding questions of public policy. The question at the heart of this project concerns the impact of the revolution in information technology on personal privacy.The dramatic advances in information technology occurring over the past 15 years have generated both social benefits and costs. The benefits derive from a more efficient allocation of goods and services and job assignments. For example, insurance policies, debt contracts, and apartment leases can be tailored to better fit the characteristics of prospective customers. Likewise, employment and college-enrollment offers can be better matched with the skills and aptitudes of applicants. There are, however, two costs associated with increased information acquisition. First, there is obviously a direct resource cost involving the collection, storage, and processing of data. Second, there is a cost in terms of personal privacy. Specifically, while consumers and/or prospective employees are typically willing to divulge some personal information in order to secure more favorable contract terms, firms often do not possess incentives for efficient information collection when screening their applicants. In particular, when firms' data-collection efforts are unobservable (and therefore not contractible), a divergence between the marginal social benefit and marginal private benefit of information acquisition arises. In environments where information acquisition corresponds to searching for `bad news' about applicants, the marginal private benefit is typically larger, inducing firms to reject too many applicants. By contrast, in environments where information acquisition corresponds to searching for `good news,' the marginal private benefit to screening is lower than the marginal social benefit, and too few applicants are approved. Hence, firms have incentives to search too hard for bad news about their applicants and not hard enough for good news.This project will investigate the economic consequences deriving from this fundamental divergence between the private and social benefits of information acquisition in a variety of market settings. Issues such as the assignment of privacy rights, price and access discrimination, and the efficiency of trading relationships will be analyzed.