We examine a setting of independent private value auctions where bidders can covertly acquire gradual information about their valuations. We demonstrate that a dynamic pivot mechanism implements the rst-best information acquisition and allocation rule. We apply our results to a commonly used...

We study information acquisition in a flexible framework with strategic complementarity or substitutability in actions and a rich set of externalities that are responsible for possible wedges between the equilibrium and the efficient acquisition of information. First, we relate the...

We consider implementability and the welfare effects of a partial announcement policy using a model of a beauty contest where agents' actions are strategic complements and where their decisions on public information acquisition are endogenous. The following results are obtained: i) if the...

We use an experiment to test whether consumers optimally acquire information on energy costs in appliance markets where, like many contexts, consumers are poorly informed and make mistakes despite freely available information. To test for optimal information acquisition we compare the average...

Using the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) as an exogenous shock to costs of information acquisition, we show that reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to (i) a significant increase in information production, evidenced by a higher frequency of analysts visiting portfolio firms,...

Using the introduction of high-speed rail as exogenous shocks to costs of information acquisition, we show that reductions in information-acquisition costs lead to a significant increase in information production and improvement in output quality, evidenced by higher frequency of analysts...

We consider the market for a risky asset with heterogeneous valuations. Private information that agents have about their own valuation is reflected in the equilibrium price. We study the learning externalities that arise in this setting, and in particular their implications for price...

I model the investors' costly information acquisition behaviours with strategic communication of asymmetric information in financial markets. I extend the dynamic insider trading model based on Kyle(Econometrica 53 (1985) 1315) to allow for costly, unobservable information acquisition, assuming...

In a financial market where agents trade for short-term profit and where news can increase the uncertainty of the public belief, there are strategic complementarities in the acquisition of private information and, if the cost of information is sufficiently small, a continuum of equilibrium...

I study the effect of public information disclosure in a market setting where private information acquisition exhibits strategic complementarity. To overcome the issue of equilibrium multiplicity, I introduce heterogeneous information cost and imperfect information on the cost distribution. The...