The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity.

HIRSHLEIFER. Jack

Published by University of California, Los Angeles, 1970

About this Item

HIRSHLEIFER. Jack. The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity. Western Management Science Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Working Paper No. 158. 11 x 8.5 , 41,(2) leaves, MIMEOGRAPHED, printed on one side only. __+__ A shorter version of this work would appear in American Economic review 61/4 Sept 1971, which is cited 2418 times.__+__ Only TWO copies located by WorldCat (both at Yale). __+__ The social value of information, on the other hand, has been the subject of a vast literature, going back at least to Hirshleifer (1971). George-Marios Angeletos, Efficient Use of Information and Social Value of Information Econometrica, Vol. 75, No. 4 (July, 2007), 1103 1142. __+__ (This work as it appeared in shortened version the following year) is deeply insightful, carefully reasoned, and lucidly explained, reflecting the author s comprehensive mastery of the whole body of neoclassical microeconomic theory.Is more information always better? It would certainly seem that more of any good is better than less. But how valuable is new information? And are the incentives to create or discover new information aligned with the value of that information? Hayek s discussion implicitly assumed that the amount of information in existence is a given stock, at least in the aggregate. How can the information that already exists be optimally used? Markets help us make use of the information that already exists. But the problem addressed by Hirshleifer was whether the incentives to discover and create new information call forth the optimal investment of time, effort and resources to make new discoveries and create new knowledge.Instead of focusing on the incentives to search for information about existing opportunities, Hirshleifer analyzed the incentives to learn about uncertain resource endowments and about the productivity of those resources. --Davidf Glasner, blog, Uneasy Money.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1604715460219

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity.
• Publisher: University of California, Los Angeles
• Publication Date: 1970
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Economics