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How to Sell Hard Information

Author

Listed:
  • S. Nageeb Ali
  • Nima Haghpanah
  • Xiao Lin
  • Ron Siegel

Abstract

The seller of an asset has the option to buy hard information about the value of the asset from an intermediary. The seller can then disclose the acquired information before selling the asset in a competitive market. We study how the intermediary designs and sells hard information to robustly maximize her revenue across all equilibria. Even though the intermediary could use an accurate test that reveals the asset's value, we show that robust revenue maximization leads to a noisy test with a continuum of possible scores that are distributed exponentially. In addition, the intermediary always charges the seller for disclosing the test score to the market, but not necessarily for running the test. This enables the intermediary to robustly appropriate a significant share of the surplus resulting from the asset sale even though the information generated by the test provides no social value.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Nageeb Ali & Nima Haghpanah & Xiao Lin & Ron Siegel, 2020. "How to Sell Hard Information," Papers 2010.08037, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2010.08037
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Juan Ortner & Sylvain Chassang, 2018. "Making Corruption Harder: Asymmetric Information, Collusion, and Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 2108-2133.
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    5. Grossman, Sanford J, 1981. "The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product Quality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 461-483, December.
    6. de Oliveira, Henrique & Denti, Tommaso & Mihm, Maximilian & Ozbek, Kemal, 2017. "Rationally inattentive preferences and hidden information costs," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), May.
    7. Dye, Ra, 1985. "Strategic Accounting Choice And The Effects Of Alternative Financial-Reporting Requirements," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 544-574.
    8. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    9. Matthew Gentzkow & Emir Kamenica, 2016. "A Rothschild-Stiglitz Approach to Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 597-601, May.
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