Selling Information in Competitive Environments
Name
Nouripour-amirnp-SM-EECS-2021-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
858.99 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8ff70c449ae9a3b8bc1d819557ff7b41
Author(s)
Nouripour, Amir
Advisor(s)
Dahleh, Munther A.
Date Issued
September 2021
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
We consider a setting where data buyers compete in a game of incomplete information, about which a data seller owns some payoff relevant information. We formulate the problem facing the seller as a joint information and mechanism design problem: deciding which information to sell, while at the same time eliciting the private value types of the buyers and collecting payments. We derive the welfare- and revenue-optimal mechanisms for a class of binary games. Our results reveal some important features of selling information in competitive environments: (i) the negative externalities arising from competition among buyers increase the profitability of selling exclusive information to one of the buyers; (ii) in order for the buyers to follow the seller’s action recommendations, the extent of exclusive sales must be limited; (iii) these same equilibrium constraints also limit the distortions in the allocation of information distortion that can be introduced by a monopolist data seller; (iv) the fiercer the competition across buyers the stronger the previous two limitations, and the weaker the impact of market power on the equilibrium allocation of information.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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