American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Social Value of Public Information
American Economic Review
vol. 92,
no. 5, December 2002
(pp. 1521–1534)
Abstract
What are the welfare effects of enhanced dissemination of public information through the media and disclosures by market participants with high public visibility? We examine the impact of public information in a setting where agents take actions appropriate to the underlying fundamentals, but they also have a coordination motive arising from a strategic complementarity in their actions. When the agents have no socially valuable private information, greater provision of public information always increases welfare. However, when agents also have access to independent sources of information, the welfare effect of increased public disclosures is ambiguous.Citation
Morris, Stephen, and Hyun Song Shin. 2002. "Social Value of Public Information ." American Economic Review, 92 (5): 1521–1534. DOI: 10.1257/000282802762024610Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief