The value of information under unawareness

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Galanis, Spyros
• 署名单位: University of Southampton
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.01.015
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 384-396
• 关键词: Unawareness; value of information; uncertainty; KNOWLEDGE; Bounded perception; awareness

摘要

The value of information is examined in a single-agent environment with unawareness. Although the agent has a correct prior about events he is aware of and has a clear understanding of his available actions and payoffs, his unawareness may lead him to commit information processing errors and to behave suboptimally. As a result, the value of information can be negative, contrasting what is true in the standard model with partitional information and no unawareness. We show that the source of the agent's suboptimal behavior is that he misunderstands the information revealed by his varying awareness, treating it asymmetrically. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.