Collaborative Research: Economies with Dispersed Information

这个项目研究的是经济中的均衡、效率和政策，这些经济体的经济基本面信息分散，例如新技术的盈利能力、金融资产的回报率或总生产率和需求状况。以前的工作研究了信息的均衡使用及其对福利的影响，假设所有信息都是外生的。目前的项目对这一理论进行了扩展，以适应信息聚合的内生渠道，例如观察过去总活动的数据、金融市场的价格，以及内生收集私人信息。然后，该项目通过找出在均衡处理信息的方式上潜在的低效，并研究可能纠正这种低效的政策，而不允许政府集中信息。这里考虑的政策实践是新颖的，与哈耶克的观点一致，即社会的经济问题是……一个没有给予任何人整体的知识的利用问题。这项研究的更广泛的影响是：(I)加深对一类重要模型的积极和规范性质的理论理解；(Ii)使理论更接近现实世界的应用；(Iii)确定金融市场、投资或商业周期中波动和低效的潜在来源；以及(Iv)指导政策，以改进分散的信息在分散的市场经济中的使用方式。

This project studies equilibrium, efficiency and policy in economies with dispersed information about commonly-relevant economic fundamentals, such as the profitability of new technologies, returns to financial assets, or aggregate productivity and demand conditions. Previous work studied the equilibrium use of information, and its implications for welfare, assuming that all information is exogenous. The current project extends the theory so as to accommodate endogenous channels of information aggregation, such as the observation of data on past aggregate activity, prices in financial markets, as well as endogenous collection of private information. The project then proceeds by identifying potential inefficiencies in the way information is processed in equilibrium and studying policies that may correct such inefficiencies, without allowing the government to centralize information. The policy exercise considered here is novel and is consistent with Hayek's view that "the economic problem of society is ... a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality."Broader impactsThe broader impacts of this research are to (i) deepen the theoretical understanding of the positive and normative properties of an important class of models; (ii) bring the theory closer to real-world applications; (iii) identify potential sources of volatility and inefficiency in financial markets, investment, or the business cycle; and (iv) guide policy towards improving the way dispersed information is used in decentralized market economies.