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Strategic Incentives and the Optimal Sale of Information

  • Rosina Rodríguez Olivera
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 16, no. 2, May 2024
(pp. 296-353)
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Abstract

A monopolist data seller offers information to privately informed data buyers. I characterize the seller's optimal menu, which screens between two types of buyers. Buyers' preferences for information allow the seller to extract all surplus, and the optimal menu's features are determined by the interaction between buyers' strategic incentives and the correlation of their private information. The seller offers perfect information to the buyer with the highest willingness to pay and partial information, which makes this type indifferent. Both experiments are informative even when buyers have congruent beliefs if they have coordination (anticoordination) incentives and their private information is negatively (positively) correlated.

Citation

Rodríguez Olivera, Rosina. 2024. "Strategic Incentives and the Optimal Sale of Information." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 16 (2): 296-353. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20210372

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D21 Firm Behavior: Theory
  • D42 Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Monopoly
  • D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
  • D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
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