Information Asymmetry and Inequalities in Macroeconomics

信息在决定个人选择方面起着至关重要的作用：虽然每一项行动都是以可获得的信息为条件的，但这在不同的个人之间可能是不同的，尽管世界上存在一个共同的状态。当信息不对称时，不仅在类似的个人之间，而且在不同的群体(相同“类型”的相似个人)之间，谁知道什么不仅在个人层面上重要，而且还可能通过改变总消费和储蓄行为来影响整个经济，从而使信息不平等“对宏观经济学产生影响”。在这个项目中，我探索了有关未来经济动态的信息不对称如何保持均衡，即使代理人完全理性，并且可以观察所有价格，放大商业周期的影响，甚至产生商业周期的影响。其贡献是确定了一种新的商业周期产生和放大机制，这种机制依赖于信息差异，而不是行为假设。此外，我还讨论了考虑政策干预的信念协调机制对常规和非常规决策的影响。事实上，这种机制的影响是多方面的。由于代理商不太能理解当前价格如何反映世界的基本状况，商业周期受到了不小的影响。首先，这可能影响到事后和可观察到的不平等的各个方面(例如，财富和教育选择)。其次，它造成了一个关于财政和货币政策干预的两难境地：如果“宣布”会导致不同个人因事前信息不同而做出不协调的反应，那么披露政策制定者的私人信息是否最优？“更简单”的政策工具可能比表面上“最优”的政策工具更有效，因为它们能够约束所有主体的相似信念--从而协调反应--。第三，当信息异质性“影响宏观”时，个人的信息获取选择会导致经济外部性。当这种情况发生时，规划者/政策制定者应该通过内部化个人最优但潜在的社会次优信息获取选择所引起的外部性来解决这个问题。

Information has a fundamental role in determining individual choices: while each action is made conditional on the available information, this is potentially heterogeneous across individuals despite the existence of a common state of the world. When information is asymmetric non only across similar individuals, but also across different groups (similar individuals of the same "type"), who knows what matters not only at individual level, but can also affect the economy as a whole by modifying the aggregate consumption and saving behaviour, so that information inequalities "matters for macroeconomics".In this project, I explore how information asymmetries about the future dynamics of the economy can persist in equilibrium even when agents are fully rational and can observe all prices, amplifying the effects of the business cycle or even generating it. The contribution is to pin down a new mechanism of business cycle generation and amplification relying on information differentials but not on behavioural assumptions. Furthermore, I address the implications for conventional and unconventional policy-making arising from considering the beliefs-coordination mechanism of policy intervention.In fact, the implications of this mechanism are multifold. The business cycle is affected in non-trivial ways as agents are less able to understand how current prices reflect the underlying state of the world. First, this can affect various dimensions of ex-post and observable inequalities (e.g. wealth and education choices). Second, it creates a dilemma regarding the fiscal and monetary policy intervention: is revealing private information of the policy-maker optimal if "announcing" can lead to uncoordinated reactions across different individuals due to their different ex-ante information? "Simpler" policy instruments may be more effective than the apparently "optimal" ones when their ability to pin down similar beliefs across all agents - and thus coordinated reactions - is considered. Third, when information heterogeneity "matters for macro", individual information-acquisition choices lead to economic externalities. When this happens, the planner/policy-maker should address the issue by internalizing the externalities induced by individually optimal but potentially socially sub-optimal information acquisition choices.