Private Versus Public Production of Information

This paper re-examines a recent article by Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) where information production is shown to be fundamentally incompatible with decentralized market systems. Based upon their model, public production of information is discussed as a natural alternative. Three main implications of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: KWON, Young Koan
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1982
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/734
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0167-2681(82)90009-9
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:This paper re-examines a recent article by Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) where information production is shown to be fundamentally incompatible with decentralized market systems. Based upon their model, public production of information is discussed as a natural alternative. Three main implications of the analysis are: (i) the market can be informationally efficient with public production of information, (ii) there exists an informational equilibrium and the resulting allocation is Pareto efficient, and (iii) although the optimal level of information critically depends upon information users' preferences and endowments, their complete knowledge t the societal level is not necessary for public production of information.