David B. Lawrence

The Economic Value of Information (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

The Scope of This Book Popular culture often refers to current times as the Information Age, classifying many of the technological, economic, and social changes of the past four deca:les under the rubric of the Information Revolution. But similar to the Iron Age be fore it, the description "Information Age" suggests the idea that information is a commodity in the marketplace, one that can be bought and sold as an item of value. When people seek to acquire information yet complain about information overload, and when organizations invest millions in information systems yet are unable to pinpoint the benefits, perhaps this reflects a difficulty with the as sessment of the value of this commodity relative to its cost, an inability to dis cern the useless from the useful from the wasteful. The Information Age requires us to assess the value, cost, and gain from information, and to do it from several different viewpoints. At the most elementary level is the individual who perceives a need for in formation-her current state of knowledge is insufficient and something needs to be understood, or clarified, or updated, or forecast. There is a universe of al ternative information sources from which to choose, some more informative than others, some more costly than others. The individual's problem is to evalu ate the alternatives and choose which sources to access. An organization comprising many information-seeking employees and agents must take a somewhat broader viewpoint.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Springer US
• Seitenzahl: 393
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Dezember 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781461214601
• Artikelnr.: 44058141

Inhaltsangabe

1. Introduction and Overview.- 1.1 Information in Decision Making.- 1.2 Information in the Organization.- 1.3 Economics of the Incorporation of Information.- 1.4 The Expected Value of an Information Source.- 1.5 Information Value, Cost, and Procurement.- 1.6 System Design for Information Gain.- 1.7 Information Social Science.- 2. The Value of the Informed Decision.- 2.1 Elements of a Decision Problem Under Uncertainty.- 2.2 The Framing of the Decision Problem.- 2.3 Useful Facts About Statistical Information.- 2.4 Value of the Informed Decision.- 3. Measures of the Value of Information.- 3.1 Measures of the Value of a Message.- 3.2 Measures of the Value of a Source.- 4. The Assessment of Statistical Information.- 4.1 Coherent Assessment of Probability Distributions.- 4.2 Assessment of Beliefs and Foreknowledge.- 4.3 Simplifying the Assessment.- 5. Models with Convenient Assessment and Interpretation.- 5.1 Models with Payoff Quadratic in the Action.- 5.2 Models with Payoff Linear in the State.- 5.3 Models with Concave-Exponential Utility.- 5.4 Models with Nonseparable Outcome; Betting and Investing Models.- 5.5 Models with Multicategorical State Description.- 5.6 Dynamic Models and the Role of Timeliness.- 5.7 Approximations and Bounds for the Value of Information.- 6. Statistical Determinants of Information Value.- 6.1 The Normal Form of Decision Analysis.- 6.2 Comparative Informativeness.- 6.3 Informativeness, Prior Knowledge, and Value.- 7. Stochastic Preference and Information Value.- 7.1 Prospects and Attitude Towards Risk.- 7.2 Risk Preference and Information Value.- 8. Information Demand and Procurement.- 8.1 The Demand for Information.- 8.2 Information Procurement.- 8.3 Optimal Incentive Contracts to Procure Information.- 9. Economics of Valuable Information Systems.- 9.1 Information Use Environments.- 9.2 System Design and Information Gain.- 9.3 Experiments in Ex-Ante Information Behavior.- 9.4 A Decision-Theoretic Model for System Design.- 9.5 Postlude.- References.- Acknowledgments.- Symbol Glossary.- Author Index.