Too much information sharing? Welfare effects of sharing acquired cost information in oligopoly

Arbeitspapier

By using general information structures and precision criteria based on the dispersion of conditional expectations, we study how oligopolists' information acquisition decisions may change the effects of information sharing on the consumer surplus. Sharing information about individual cost parameters gives the following trade-off in Cournot oligopoly. On the one hand, it decreases the expected consumer surplus for a given information precision, as the literature shows. On the other hand, information sharing increases the firms' incentives to acquire information, and the consumer surplus increases in the precision of the firms' information. Interestingly, the latter effect may dominate the former effect.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ; No. 2010,40

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Antitrust Issues and Policies: General ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• Subject: oligopoly ; information acquisition ; information sharing ; information structures ; consumer surplus ; Oligopol ; Wissenstransfer ; Informationsverhalten ; Konsumentenrente ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ganuza, Juan José ; Jansen, Jos
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/57521
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET