Citation

Bergemann D, Bonatti A, Smolin A. Am. Econ. Rev. 2018; 108(1): 1-48.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Economic Association)

DOI

10.1257/aer.20161079

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A data buyer faces a decision problem under uncertainty. He can augment his initial private information with supplemental data from a data seller. His willingness to pay for supplemental data is determined by the quality of his initial private information. The data seller optimally offers a menu of statistical experiments. We establish the properties that any revenue-maximizing menu of experiments must satisfy. Every experiment is a non-dispersed stochastic matrix, and every menu contains a fully informative experiment. In the cases of binary states and actions, or binary types, we provide an explicit construction of the optimal menu of experiments.

Language: en

Keywords

Belief; Communication; Information and Knowledge; Learning; Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Monopoly, Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty, Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design, Search; Unawareness