Public Goods, Social Pressure, and the Choice between Privacy and Publicity
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 2,
no. 2, May 2010
(pp. 191-221)
Abstract
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, but 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)Citation
Daughety, Andrew F., and Jennifer F. Reinganum. 2010. "Public Goods, Social Pressure, and the Choice between Privacy and Publicity." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2 (2): 191-221. DOI: 10.1257/mic.2.2.191Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information
- H41 Public Goods
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