The Influence of (Im)perfect Data Privacy on the Acquisition of Personal Health Data

Simeon Schudy and Verena Utikal ()

No 2012-12, Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz from Department of Economics, University of Konstanz

Abstract: We investigate the consequences of imperfect data privacy on information acquisition of personal health data. In a game of persuasion with ex-ante symmetric information players decide on whether or not to acquire and reveal information about their personal health status to convince a decision maker to interact. We contrast three institutional settings: automatic dissemination of acquired information, perfect data privacy and imperfect data privacy. Assuming that the ex-ante expected payoff of an interaction with an unknown type for the decision maker is positive, equilibria with complete information acquisition and complete information revelation exist only under perfect and imperfect data privacy. Equilibria without any information acquisition exist under all institutional settings. We test our predictions in a laboratory experiment. Automatic dissemination leads to incomplete information acquisition. Both imperfect and perfect data privacy yield almost complete information acquisition and thus imperfect data privacy does not reduce the amount of acquired information.

Keywords: data privacy; endogenous information acquisition; health; experiment; unraveling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 D82 I1 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2012-07-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: The Influence of (Im)perfect Data Privacy on the Acquisition of Personal Health Data (2012)
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