IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/twi/respas/0076.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Influence of (Im)perfect Data Privacy on the Acquisition of Personal Health Data

Author

Listed:
  • Simeon Schudy
  • Verena Utikal

Abstract

We investigate the consequences of imperfect data privacy on information acquisition of personal health data. In a game of persuasion with ex-ante symmetric information players decide on whether or not to acquire and reveal information about their personal health status to convince a decision maker to interact. We contrast three institutional settings: automatic dissemination of acquired information, perfect data privacy and imperfect data privacy. Assuming that the ex-ante expected payoff of an interaction with an unknown type for the decision maker is positive, equilibria with complete information acquisition and complete information revelation exist only under perfect and imperfect data privacy. Equilibria without any information acquisition exist under all institutional settings. We test our predictions in a laboratory experiment. Automatic dissemination leads to incomplete information acquisition. Both imperfect and perfect data privacy yield almost complete information acquisition and thus imperfect data privacy does not reduce the amount of acquired information.

Suggested Citation

  • Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2012. "The Influence of (Im)perfect Data Privacy on the Acquisition of Personal Health Data," TWI Research Paper Series 76, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    • Handle: RePEc:twi:respas:0076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.twi-kreuzlingen.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/twi-rps-076-schudy-utikal-2012-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bardey, David & De Donder, Philippe, 2013. "Genetic testing with primary prevention and moral hazard," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 768-779.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    3. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad, 1992. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 566-578, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Beresford, Alastair R. & Kübler, Dorothea & Preibusch, Sören, 2012. "Unwillingness to pay for privacy: A field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 25-27.
    6. Posner, Richard A, 1981. "The Economics of Privacy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 405-409, May.
      • Posner, Richard A., 1980. "The Economics of Privacy," Working Papers 16, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    7. Tabarrok, Alexander, 1994. "Genetic testing: An economic and contractarian analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 75-91, March.
    8. Tomas J. Philipson & Richard A. Posner, 1995. "A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Public Health Subsidies for STD Testing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 445-474.
    9. Gerald Eisenkopf, 2007. "Learning and Peer Effects," TWI Research Paper Series 16, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    10. Hurkens, Sjaak & Vulkan, Nir, 2003. "Free entry does not imply zero profits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 285-290, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Anke Kessler, 1998. "The Value of Ignorance," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 339-354, Summer.
    13. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    14. Nicola Persico, 2000. "Information Acquisition in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 135-148, January.
    15. Eliaz, Kfir & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2011. "Edgar Allan Poe's riddle: Framing effects in repeated matching pennies games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 88-99, January.
    16. Hoel, Michael & Iversen, Tor, 2002. "Genetic testing when there is a mix of compulsory and voluntary health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 253-270, March.
    17. Benjamin Hermalin & Michael Katz, 2006. "Privacy, property rights and efficiency: The economics of privacy as secrecy," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 209-239, September.
    18. Caplin, Andrew & Eliaz, Kfir, 2003. "AIDS Policy and Psychology: A Mechanism-Design Approach," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 631-646, Winter.
    19. Doherty, Neil A. & Thistle, Paul D., 1996. "Adverse selection with endogenous information in insurance markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 83-102, December.
    20. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Janice Y. Tsai & Serge Egelman & Lorrie Cranor & Alessandro Acquisti, 2011. "The Effect of Online Privacy Information on Purchasing Behavior: An Experimental Study," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 254-268, June.
    22. Stigler, George J., 1980. "An Introduction to Privacy in Economics and Politics," Working Papers 10, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    23. Alessandro Acquisti & Leslie K. John & George Loewenstein, 2013. "What Is Privacy Worth?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 249-274.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benndorf, Volker & Kübler, Dorothea & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2015. "Privacy concerns, voluntary disclosure of information, and unraveling: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 43-59.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2015. "Does imperfect data privacy stop people from collecting personal health data?," TWI Research Paper Series 98, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    2. Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2018. "Does Imperfect Data Privacy Stop People from Collecting Personal Data?," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, March.
    3. Hermstrüwer, Yoan & Dickert, Stephan, 2017. "Sharing is daring: An experiment on consent, chilling effects and a salient privacy nudge," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 38-49.
    4. Benndorf, Volker & Kübler, Dorothea & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2015. "Privacy concerns, voluntary disclosure of information, and unraveling: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 43-59.
    5. Yoan Hermstrüwer & Stephan Dickert, 2013. "Tearing the Veil of Privacy Law: An Experiment on Chilling Effects and the Right to Be Forgotten," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_15, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    6. Francesca Barigozzi & Dominique Henriet, 2011. "Genetic Information: Comparing Alternative Regulatory Approaches When Prevention Matters," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 23-46, February.
    7. Eva I. Hoppe & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2013. "Contracting under Incomplete Information and Social Preferences: An Experimental Study," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1516-1544.
    8. Florian Hoffmann & Roman Inderst & Marco Ottaviani, 2020. "Persuasion Through Selective Disclosure: Implications for Marketing, Campaigning, and Privacy Regulation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 4958-4979, November.
    9. Hoppe, Eva I. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2015. "Do sellers offer menus of contracts to separate buyer types? An experimental test of adverse selection theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 17-33.
    10. Schudy, Simeon & Utikal, Verena, 2017. "‘You must not know about me’—On the willingness to share personal data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-13.
    11. Ackfeld, Viola & Güth, Werner, 2023. "Personal information disclosure under competition for benefits: Is sharing caring?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 1-32.
    12. Morlok, Tina & Matt, Christian & Hess, Thomas, 2017. "Privatheitsforschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Entwicklung, Stand und Perspektiven," Working Papers 1/2017, University of Munich, Munich School of Management, Institute for Information Systems and New Media.
    13. Mimra, Wanda & Nemitz, Janina & Waibel, Christian, 2020. "Voluntary pooling of genetic risk: A health insurance experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 864-882.
    14. Wanda Mimra & Janina Nemitz & Christian Waibel, 2019. "Voluntary pooling of genetic risk: A health insurance experiment," Post-Print hal-02499086, HAL.
    15. Alessandro Acquisti & Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2016. "The Economics of Privacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 442-492, June.
    16. Dengler, Sebastian & Prüfer, Jens, 2021. "Consumers' privacy choices in the era of big data," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 499-520.
    17. Schmitz, Patrick W. & Hoppe-Fischer, Eva, 2009. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract: Experimental Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7252, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Volker Benndorf, 2018. "Voluntary Disclosure of Private Information and Unraveling in the Market for Lemons: An Experiment," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, May.
    19. Jin-Hyuk Kim & Liad Wagman, 2015. "Screening incentives and privacy protection in financial markets: a theoretical and empirical analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, March.
    20. Avi Goldfarb, 2014. "What is Different About Online Advertising?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(2), pages 115-129, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    data privacy; endogenous information acquisition; health; experiment; unraveling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:twi:respas:0076. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Urs Fischbacher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/twikrch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.