IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v2y2010i2p191-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Goods, Social Pressure, and the Choice between Privacy and Publicity

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew F. Daughety
  • Jennifer F. Reinganum

Abstract

We model privacy as an agent's choice of action being unobservable to others. An agent derives utility from his action, the aggregate of agents' actions, and other agents' perceptions of his type. If his action is unobservable, he takes his full-information optimal action and is pooled with other types, while if observable, then he distorts it to enhance others' perceptions of him. This increases the public good, but the disutility from distortion is a social cost. When the disutility of distortion is high (low) relative to the marginal utility of the public good, a policy of privacy (publicity) is optimal. (JEL D82, H41)

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2010. "Public Goods, Social Pressure, and the Choice between Privacy and Publicity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 191-221, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:191-221
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.2.2.191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.2.2.191
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/2009-0041_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 1995. "Keeping Society in the Dark: On the Admissibility of Pretrial Negotiations as Evidence in Court," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(2), pages 203-221, Summer.
    2. Leslie M. Marx & Steven A. Matthews, 2000. "Dynamic Voluntary Contribution to a Public Project," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(2), pages 327-358.
    3. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Communicating quality: a unified model of disclosure and signalling," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 973-989, December.
    4. Vesterlund, Lise, 2003. "The informational value of sequential fundraising," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 627-657, March.
    5. Ramey, Garey, 1996. "D1 Signaling Equilibria with Multiple Signals and a Continuum of Types," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 508-531, May.
    6. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1991. "Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061414, December.
    7. Curtis R. Taylor, 2004. "Consumer Privacy and the Market for Customer Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(4), pages 631-650, Winter.
    8. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    9. Harbaugh, William T., 1998. "What do donations buy?: A model of philanthropy based on prestige and warm glow," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 269-284, February.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Calzolari, Giacomo & Pavan, Alessandro, 2006. "On the optimality of privacy in sequential contracting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 168-204, September.
    15. Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2010. "Information Disclosure and Unraveling in Matching Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 34-63, May.
    16. Romano, Richard & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2001. "Why charities announce donations: a positive perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 423-447, September.
    17. Mailath, George J, 1987. "Incentive Compatibility in Signaling Games with a Continuum of Types," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1349-1365, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Privacy, Publicity, and Choice," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0809, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    2. Mehmet Bac & Parimal Kanti Bag, 2000. "Strategic Information Revelation in Fund-Raising Campaigns," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0178, Econometric Society.
    3. 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.
    4. Huseyin Yildirim & Alvaro Name Correa, 2011. "A Theory of Charitable Fund-Raising with Costly Solicitations," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000222, David K. Levine.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Jingping Li & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2017. "Category Reporting In Charitable Giving: An Experimental Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 397-408, January.
    8. Holger Sieg & Jipeng Zhang, 2012. "The Effectiveness Of Private Benefits In Fundraising Of Local Charities," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 349-374, May.
    9. Rosar, Frank, 2017. "Test design under voluntary participation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 632-655.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Jeremy M. Burke & Curtis R. Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2012. "Information Acquisition in Competitive Markets: An Application to the US Mortgage Market," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 65-106, November.
    13. Lagerlöf, Johan N.M., 2023. "Surfing incognito: Welfare effects of anonymous shopping," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Florian Hoffmann & Roman Inderst & Marco Ottaviani, 2013. "Hypertargeting, Limited Attention, and Privacy: Implications for Marketing and Campaigning," Working Papers 479, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. S. Nageeb Ali & Gregory Lewis & Shoshana Vasserman, 2019. "Voluntary Disclosure and Personalized Pricing," NBER Working Papers 26592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Andres Hervas-Drane, 2015. "Competing with Privacy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 229-246, January.
    20. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Communicating quality: a unified model of disclosure and signalling," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 973-989, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:aea:aejmic:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:191-221. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.