Topics in Information Economics: Deception, Damage, and Privacy

信息经济学主题：欺骗、损害和隐私

• 批准号: 2116165
• 负责人: Joel Sobel
• 金额: $ 25.4万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2116165&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Topics; Information; Economics; Deception; Damage

This research project will consist of two studies. The first study will investigate the relationship between deceptive practices and negative consequences. Public policy has a role in protecting consumers from false and misleading claims. What constitutes deceptive behavior depends on the circumstances. The project will introduce different definitions of deception. In each case, it will identify when deception leads to a reduction in consumer well being. The project will lead to a better understanding of the costs of deceptive behavior and inform policies that limit deceptive practices. The study will instruct policy makers to use the context – the characteristics of the decision problem – to determine which practices are deceptive and to identify which behavior should be classified as deceptive. The second study will present a framework to study the feasibility of policies that safeguard individuals’ personal information and the welfare consequences of these policies. We now have the ability to collect, store, and analyze vast quantities of information about individual behavior. Consumers appear to be willing to provide information to these firms voluntarily, but there is widespread concern that they do not receive proper compensation for the information they provide. The study will develop the idea that interdependence of information – the property that information provided by one person may reveal information about another – could explain why people may voluntarily disclose private information without compensation. The study will identify when it is impossible to protect private information and suggest ways in which to redistribute the benefits from sharing information when full privacy protection is not possible.The study of damage and deception builds on standard models of strategic communication. A speaker deceives an audience if communication induces in- correct beliefs about the state of the world. A speaker damages an audience if these incorrect beliefs lead the audience to make suboptimal decisions. Different definitions of incorrect beliefs will lead to different definitions of deception. For each definition, the research will characterize those preferences of the audience for which deception is damaging. The study of privacy will use the theory of mechanism design to determine whether a consumer will provide information to an information-collecting platform or opt out. Agents who opt out do not provide information to the platform, but they cannot suppress information supplied by others. In this environment, there will be a distinction between mechanisms that preserve privacy in the sense that individuals control who can observe their personal information from mechanisms that induce full participation (no individuals opt out). Mechanisms that induce full participation but do not preserve privacy are common. Studying these environments will inform policies that better compensate individuals who contribute information.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该研究项目将包括两项研究。第一项研究将调查欺骗行为和消极后果之间的关系。公共政策在保护消费者免受虚假和误导性索赔方面发挥作用。什么是欺骗行为取决于具体情况。该项目将介绍欺骗的不同定义。在每一种情况下，它将确定何时欺骗导致消费者福祉的降低。 该项目将导致更好地了解欺骗行为的成本，并为限制欺骗行为的政策提供信息。这项研究将指导政策制定者使用的背景-决策问题的特点-来确定哪些做法是欺骗性的，并确定哪些行为应被归类为欺骗性。第二项研究将提出一个框架，研究保护个人个人信息的政策的可行性以及这些政策的福利后果。我们现在有能力收集、存储和分析大量关于个人行为的信息。消费者似乎愿意自愿向这些公司提供信息，但人们普遍担心，他们提供的信息得不到适当的补偿。这项研究将发展这样一种观点，即信息的相互依存性-一个人提供的信息可能揭示另一个人的信息-可以解释为什么人们可能自愿无偿披露私人信息。这项研究将确定何时不可能保护私人信息，并建议如何重新分配共享信息的好处时，完全的隐私保护是不可能的。损害和欺骗的研究建立在标准模型的战略沟通。如果一个演讲者在交流中诱导出对世界状况的不正确的信念，那么他就是在欺骗听众.如果这些不正确的信念导致听众做出次优的决定，演讲者就会损害听众。 对不正确信念的不同定义会导致对欺骗的不同定义。对于每一个定义，研究将描述那些偏好的观众欺骗是有害的。对隐私的研究将使用机制设计理论来确定消费者是否会向信息收集平台提供信息或选择退出。选择退出的代理不会向平台提供信息，但他们不能压制其他人提供的信息。在这种环境下，保护隐私的机制与诱导充分参与（没有个人选择退出）的机制之间存在区别，因为个人控制谁可以观察他们的个人信息。诱导充分参与但不保护隐私的机制很常见。研究这些环境将为政策提供信息，更好地补偿贡献信息的个人。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Getting Permission

获得许可

• DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20210494
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: American Economic Review: Insights
• 作者: Hu, Peicong;Sobel, Joel
• 通讯作者: Sobel, Joel