Private Versus Public Production of Information

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1982

Abstract

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.

Discipline

Accounting

Research Areas

Corporate Reporting and Disclosure

Publication

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Volume

3

Issue

4

First Page

345

Last Page

356

ISSN

0167-2681

Identifier

10.1016/0167-2681(82)90009-9

Publisher

SSRN

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS