Topics in Information Economics: Deception, Damage, and Privacy

这个研究项目将包括两项研究。第一项研究将调查欺骗行为与负面后果之间的关系。公共政策在保护消费者免受虚假和误导性声明的侵害方面发挥着作用。什么构成欺骗行为取决于具体情况。该项目将介绍欺骗的不同定义。在每种情况下，它都能识别出欺骗行为何时会导致消费者幸福感下降。该项目将有助于更好地了解欺诈行为的成本，并为限制欺诈行为的政策提供信息。这项研究将指导决策者使用上下文——决策问题的特征——来确定哪些做法是欺骗性的，哪些行为应该被归类为欺骗性的。第二项研究将提出一个框架来研究保护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，他们提供的信息没有得到适当的补偿。这项研究将发展这样一种观点，即信息的相互依赖——一个人提供的信息可能会泄露另一个人的信息——可以解释为什么人们会自愿在没有补偿的情况下披露私人信息。这项研究将确定什么时候不可能保护私人信息，并提出在不可能完全保护隐私的情况下，如何重新分配共享信息带来的好处。对损害和欺骗的研究建立在战略沟通的标准模型之上。如果听众对世界状况产生错误的看法，演讲者就会欺骗听众。如果这些错误的信念导致听众做出次优决策，演讲者就会损害听众。对错误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，研究都将描述受众的偏好，其中欺骗是有害的。隐私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。选择退出的代理不向平台提供信息，但不能压制他人提供的信息。在这种环境下，保护隐私的机制（个人控制谁可以观察他们的个人信息）与诱导充分参与的机制（没有个人选择退出）之间将存在区别。诱导充分参与但不保护隐私的机制很常见。研究这些环境将为更好地补偿提供信息的个人的政策提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

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.