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Selling Information to Competitive Firms

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Abstract

A monopolistic information provider sells an informative experiment to a large number of perfectly competitive firms. Within each firm, a principal contracts with an exclusive agent who is privately informed about his production cost. Principals decide whether to acquire the experiment, that is informative about the agent’s production cost. While more accurate information reduces agency costs and allows firms to increase production, it also results in a lower market price, which reduces principals’ willingness to pay for information. We show that, even if information is costless for the provider, the optimal experiment is not fully informative when demand is price-inelastic and agents are likely to be inefficient. This result hinges on the assumption that firms are competitive and exacerbates when principals can coordinate vis-à-vis the information provider. In an imperfectly competitive information market, providers may restrict information by not selling the experiment to some of the principals.

Suggested Citation

  • Jakub Kastl & Marco Pagnozzi & Salvatore Piccolo, 2015. "Selling Information to Competitive Firms," CSEF Working Papers 420, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:420
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    Cited by:

    1. Flavio Pino, 2022. "The microeconomics of data – a survey," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 635-665, September.
    2. Jorge Padilla & Salvatore Piccolo & Helder Vasconcelos, 2020. "On the Private and Social Value of Consumer Data in Vertically-Integrated Platform Markets," CSEF Working Papers 583, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    3. Jorge Padilla & Salvatore Piccolo & Helder Vasconcelos, 2022. "Business models, consumer data and privacy in platform markets," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 599-634, September.
    4. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Bonatti, 2019. "Markets for Information: An Introduction," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 85-107, August.
    5. Sarah Spiekermann & Hanna Krasnova & Oliver Hinz & Annika Baumann & Alexander Benlian & Henner Gimpel & Irina Heimbach & Antonia Köster & Alexander Maedche & Björn Niehaves & Marten Risius & Manuel Tr, 2022. "Values and Ethics in Information Systems," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(2), pages 247-264, April.
    6. Koski, Heli, 2018. "How Do Competition Policy and Data Brokers Shape Product Market Competition?," ETLA Working Papers 61, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    7. Shuaicheng Liu, 2023. "Location choice with asymmetric data in the Hotelling model," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 19(4), pages 855-878, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adverse Selection; Information Acquisition; Experiments; Competitive Markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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