Optimal dynamic public communication
Abstract
This paper builds a dynamic model of the information flow between partially informed financial institutions and a public agency. The financial institutions decide how to allocate their portfolio between a risk-free technology with a known payoff and a risky technology whose payoff is unknown. The public agency learns about the value of the unknown payoff by observing with measurement error the actions of the financial institutions and decides whether to communicate the information at the agency's disposal. The paper characterizes the optimal public communication plan and shows that full transparency (taken as the release of information whenever it is collected) is not always optimal. Instead, optimal plans involve delayed communication, the amount of delay depending on the precision of private information and the size of the agency's measurement error. The explanation of the result lies in the collection process of public information: while releasing information improves the welfare of the agents, it also decreases the informational content of their actions, hampering the agency's learning and reducing the benefits of future public communication.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area in its series Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) with number 856.Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_856_12
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Via Nazionale, 91 - 00184 Roma
Web page: http://www.bancaditalia.it
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: value of information; learning; pubblic communication.;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
- D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information
- E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
- E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-03-21 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBA-2012-03-21 (Central Banking)
- NEP-CTA-2012-03-21 (Contract Theory & Applications)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Burguet, R. & Vives, X., 1996.
"Social Learning and Costly Information Acquisition,"
UFAE and IAE Working Papers
323.96, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
- Roberto Burguet & Xavier Vives, 2000. "Social learning and costly information acquisition," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 185-205.
- Sandra Gomes & Pascal Jacquinot & Matthias Mohr & Massimiliano Pisani, 2011.
"Structural reforms and macroeconomic performance in the euro area countries: a model-based assessment,"
Temi di discussione (Economic working papers)
830, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
- Sandra Gomes & Pascal Jacquinot & Matthias Mohr & Massimiliano Pisani, 2011. "Structural reforms and macroeconomic performance in the euro area countries: a model-based assessment," Working Paper Series 1323, European Central Bank.
- Sandra Gomes & P. Jacquinot & M. Mohr & M. Pisani, 2011. "Structural reforms and macroeconomic performance in the euro area countries: a model-based assessment," Working Papers w201113, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
- Amador, Manuel & Weill, Pierre-Olivier, 2006. "Learning from Private and Public Observation of Other's Actions," MPRA Paper 109, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Pierre Gosselin & Aileen Lotz & Charles Wyplosz, 2008. "The Expected Interest Rate Path: Alignment of Expectations vs. Creative Opacity," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 4(3), pages 145-185, September.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_856_12For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

