Public Goods, Social Pressure, and the Choice Between Privacy and Publicity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Daughety, Andrew F.; Reinganum, Jennifer F.
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University; Vanderbilt University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.2.2.191
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 191-221
• 关键词: voluntary contribution; signaling games; ECONOMICS; disclosure; Donations; continuum; MODEL

摘要

We model privacy as an agent's choice of action being unobservable to others. An agent derives utility from his action, the aggregate of agents' actions, and other agents' perceptions of his type. If his action is unobservable, he takes his full-information optimal action and is pooled with other types, while if observable, then he distorts it to enhance others' perceptions of him. This increases the public good, hut the disutility from distortion is a social cost. When the disutility of distortion is high (low) relative to the marginal utility of the public good, a policy of privacy (publicity) is optimal. (JEL D82, H41)