Social learning and costly information acquisition

Author Info

• Roberto Burguet

()

(Instituto de AnÂlisis EconÕmico, CSIC, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, SPAIN)

• Xavier Vives

()

(Instituto de AnÂlisis EconÕmico, CSIC, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, SPAIN)

Registered author(s):

Abstract

Short-lived agents want to predict a random variable $\theta$ and have to decide how much effort to devote to collect private information and consequently how much to rely on public information. The latter is just a noisy average of past predictions. It is shown that costly information acquisition prevents an unbounded accumulation of public information if (and only if) the marginal cost to acquire information is positive at zero $(C^\prime (0) > 0)$. When $C^\prime (0) = 0$ public precision at period n, $\tau_n$, tends to infinity with n but the rate of convergence of public information to $\theta$ is slowed down with respect to the exogenous information case. At the market outcome agents acquire too little private information. This happens either with respect to a (decentralized) first best benchmark or, for n large, with respect to a (decentralized) second best benchmark. For high discount factors the limit point of market public precision always falls short of the welfare benchmarks whenever $C^\prime (0) > 0$. In the extreme, as the discount factor tends to one public precision tends to infinity in the welfare-optimal programs while it remains bounded at the market solution. Otherwise, if $C^\prime (0) = 0$ public precision accumulates in an unbounded way both at the first and second best solutions. More public information may hurt at either the market or second best solutions.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) in its journal Economic Theory.

Volume (Year): 15 (2000)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 185-205

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 Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:15:y:2000:i:1:p:185-205 Note: Received: March 17, 1998; revised version: January 25, 1999 Contact details of provider: Web page: http://saet.uiowa.edu/More information through EDIRC Order Information: Web: http://www.springer.com/economics/economic+theory/journal/199/PS2

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