The role of private benefits in information acquisition

Kazumi Hori

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2008, vol. 68, issue 3-4, 626-631

Abstract: In many cases, the cost of hiring an agent to acquire information is lower than the cost for the principal to perform that task. However, because of a difference in preferences between the principal and the agent, the principal often cannot fully utilize the agent's expertise. This paper considers the cost of motivating the agent to acquire information and inducing him to report truthfully. The larger the private benefit, the greater is the cost of eliciting true information. At the same time, a private benefit may reduce the cost of motivating information acquisition. Thus, there are cases in which an agent with a different preference is desirable.

Keywords: Private; benefits; Information; acquisition; Agency; cost; Asymmetric; information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(08)00141-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:68:y:2008:i:3-4:p:626-631

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().