-Answer to Professor Wang Zeke (3)
Xie Kang
Professor Wang believes that "information economics is the study of how to make people tell the truth and how to keep their promises". Then, we can see what information economics is from the change of research focus of information economics, and see what position the "authentic" information economics advocated by Professor Wang is in the historical development of information economics. To this end, we respond to Professor Wang's point of view from the following five aspects:
First, kenneth j. arrow, an American economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1972, published a collection of essays Basil Blackwell in 1984. In the preface to the Chinese version of this book, he wrote, "Perhaps, no economist will ever deny that most economic decisions are made under considerable uncertainty, but only in recent decades, starting from 1950, have tools for explicitly analyzing economic behavior under uncertainty been used. Once the existence of uncertainty can be formally analyzed, the economic function of information becomes very important. " "Mathematical statisticians have long recognized the complex choice problem, and information economics has absorbed and will continue to use their research results. The thesis of this book was written in a long period of time, and its evolution revealed the change of research focus in the field of information economy for readers "(see Arrow's Information Economics, Beijing Economic College Press, 1989 edition, preface of Chinese version).
In this paper collection, Aro * * collected 18 papers from 1949 to198, covering statistical decision-making, information value, organizational agenda, resource allocation of large teams and so on. According to the definition of information economics given by Professor Wang, only three papers in 18 belong to the category of information economics. But Arrow's contribution to the development of information economics is recognized by international economists, and no one can deny it at will.
Secondly, george stigler, the winner of 1982 Nobel Prize in Economics, mainly expounded the ideas of information economics in his early three papers, namely, Information Economics (19 1), Information of Labor Market (1962) and On Oligopoly (/kloc-). According to Professor Wang's standards, none of these three classic papers on information economics is information economics, at least not "authentic" information economics. However, in the award announcement of 1982, the Swedish Academy of Royal Sciences praised stigler as the founder of "information economics" and "regulatory economics" and one of the pioneers of marginal science-legal economics. In the later published Price Theory (Beijing Institute of Economics Press, 1990 edition), stigler further refined his exploration of information economics search theory in chapter 14. Similarly, we believe that stigler's pioneering thought in information economics will not become the content of non-information economics with the change of research focus, and the information economy problems of search and oligopoly are still worth studying.
Thirdly, according to the survey published by American economists Hershleaf and Riley in Journal of Economic Literature No.4 1979, the basic content of information economics includes five parts: information decision-making, public information and market equilibrium, research and invention economics, information superiority and information market display, reasonable expectation and information efficiency. According to market uncertainty and technical uncertainty, Hirschleif and Riley divide information economics into micro and macro branches. According to Professor Wang's "real" category of information economics, only information superiority and information market display can be generally regarded as information economics. But judging from their academic contribution to information economics, we accept their views more than those of Professor Wang. Hirschleif (1973) thinks that information economics is the natural development of economic uncertainty theory. According to the scope defined by Professor Wang, Hirschlev's research on the private value and social value of information and the return of his invention activities certainly do not belong to the category of information economics. However, why does Li Shaorong of Peking University School of Economics still call this Hirschlev's contribution to information economics? (Interested readers can refer to Li Shaorong's "Jack Hirschliff's Contribution to Information Economics and Conflict Analysis Theory" and "Economic Trends",No. 10, 200 1)
Fourth, Professor Wang said that we "put information technology and information industry unrelated to' information asymmetry' into information economics to live as ourselves" and could not meet the international standards. Then, let's speak with facts! At present, Information Economics and Policy, the only information economics publication in the world with information economics as its theme and information economics as its first editor, has published theoretical papers on asymmetric information economy and a large number of theoretical papers on information industry, especially telecommunications industry and service pricing, internet monopoly and competition. If Professor Wang doesn't believe it, he might as well look for it through the Internet. In addition, Fan Lian, the author of Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Perspective, has established a personal website (www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/infoecon) called "Information Economy-Economics of Internet, Information Commodities and Knowledge Products", and published his discussion paper on information commodity pricing and network economy. In Fan Lian's Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Perspective (after the 6th edition 1996), the author discussed information technology and information asymmetry in two separate chapters, instead of defining the former as information industry, the latter as information economics.
We take this opportunity to ask Professor Wang a small question: Does the pricing of information goods belong to information asymmetry theory or information industry? We believe that this problem is neither a theoretical problem of information asymmetry defined by Professor Wang nor an information industry problem, but only an information economics problem. This involves our different understanding of the concept of information economics with Professor Wang. Professor Wang believes that information economics is a narrow theory of information asymmetry, while we believe that information economics is a science that studies information-related economic phenomena in a broad sense. In other words, information economics is a discipline that studies information phenomena and their laws in economic behavior. It includes not only information asymmetry theory and incentive mechanism theory, but also search theory, information value theory, information commodity pricing, internet economy, informatization theory and information industry theory.
Fifthly, from the shift of the research focus of information economics, we can clearly see what information economics is. It begins with the study of statistical decision-making, discusses the uncertainty, and gradually appears in many research fields, including stigler's search theory, Arrow's information value theory, Vickery and Morris' second bidding method and optimal tax incentive mechanism theory, Achian's information cost and pricing theory, etc. In 1970s, the asymmetric information economy theory represented by akerlof, Spencer and Stiglitz appeared. In 1980s and 1990s, from the agricultural products market in developing countries to the financial services market in developed countries, the theory of asymmetric information economy was gradually applied to various fields. But after 1990s, information commodity pricing, information industry, informatization, Internet and network economy have become the topics of discussion. Asymmetric information theory did not appear in standard economics textbooks until around 1995.
It is normal to have different understandings of the category of information economics. The key is to do your own thing according to your own understanding. Information economics is a developing economics, which can't stand still at this stage, let alone be confined to this field, because asymmetric information theory or incentive mechanism theory has become one of the core contents of information economics. Based on this point of view, we believe that anyone who studies or explores the economic phenomenon or essence of information from any angle and studies or explores various economic problems brought by information should be encouraged and supported, and should be regarded as an exploration of information economics. Everyone gathers firewood, and everyone discusses the economic problems of information and even all economic problems together. In this way, there is no forbidden area for economic research, and it is possible to contribute to the basic theory of economics put forward by Professor Wang, which is not only respected by the world, but also adopted by the world. If you use abusive words to criticize works or papers that do not conform to your own views, or draw a prison for yourself, then you may not be able to achieve Professor Wang's goal. We advocate: concentrate on doing your own thing, whether it is the content of "authentic" information economics defined by some people or not, as long as it involves social needs, national needs, academic development needs and your own interests, you should study, explore and develop. At the same time, I dare to make a small suggestion to Professor Wang: Since you think you are doing "authentic" information economics, why not study and explore specific information economics issues in a down-to-earth manner? Isn't this more conducive to the development of information economics? Isn't this more conducive to eliminating impetuousness in economic research?
In our opinion, the discussion about what information economics is is meaningful, but it is not of great value to the substantive development of information economics, especially if we fall into this random criticism for a long time or adopt aldehyde in academic criticism. The guerrilla critical attitude of "shooting for a place" is wasting your precious academic research time. Professor Wang advocates replacing "western economics" with "modern economics". You have the right and freedom to do so in the article, but others also have the right and freedom to use the concepts of western economics in their own works. Similarly, Professor Wang has the right and freedom to put forward his own understanding of the category of information economics, but others also have the right and freedom to put forward different understandings. These different understandings of information economics should and can coexist, and there is no distinction between science and non-science.
Attached:
Scientific decision-making, No.4, 2000
Foreign research on information economics
Xie Kang
Recently, domestic academic circles have discussed what is information economics. On the Southern Weekend of June 4th, 1999, Wang Zeke wrote "Is it information economics? On Information Economics, by He Wei (Economic Science Press, 1998). On June 25th, in the same newspaper, Huang Chun answered the former question with the topic "What is information economics". This paper does not intend to directly discuss what information economics is, but briefly reviews the research progress of information economics abroad, reflecting the research status of information economics abroad and providing research background for relevant discussions in China.
First, the research angle of foreign information economics.
The author agrees with joseph stiglitz (1985a), Vice President of the World Bank, that information economics can be regarded as a perspective method, that is, a method of observing economic phenomena and laws. Information economics is a theoretical achievement and knowledge system formed from the perspective of information economics. So, what is the perspective of information economics? In other words, from what angles do foreign scholars analyze the phenomenon of information economy? According to the literature I have mastered, foreign scholars mainly analyze the phenomenon of information economy from five angles.
The first angle is to analyze economic phenomena under the assumption of incomplete information and asymmetric information. Most of the research from this perspective is based on the connection with general equilibrium analysis, but some research results still cannot be connected with general equilibrium analysis, such as george stigler's search theory in Information Economics 196 1. However, in 1970s and 1980s, after the arrangement and development of Rothschild and P Diamond, the search theory has been transformed into a set of theories about the allocation mechanism of information resources.
Based on the hypothesis of incomplete information and asymmetric information, various microeconomic research results have formed the most distinctive information economics theory in the contemporary era, which we call microeconomic theory. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the basic concepts of micro-information economics, such as principal-agent relationship, incentive mechanism, adverse selection (or adverse selection), moral hazard, market signals and search, were gradually integrated into the contents of foreign classic textbooks of micro-economics.
H Fan Lian's Intermediate Microeconomics: Modern Perspectives (version 1990) arranges the above contents in the last chapter. This textbook is one of the authoritative textbooks that incorporated the concepts and theories of microeconomics into the teaching content earlier abroad. In the fourth edition of 1996, the author changed the title of the last chapter from "information" to "information asymmetry", and arranged an independent chapter to explain the economic principles of information technology (mainly analyzing the externalities of network economy and its intellectual property protection). David M. Crepps's Microeconomics Course (version 1990) divides the book into five parts, which are individual and social choice, price mechanism, non-cooperative game theory, information economics topics, manufacturers and transactions in turn. In the special topic of information economics, it includes moral hazard and incentive, unfavorable choice and market signal, and the principle and mechanism design of information disclosure. On pages 65438-0992 of Principles and Applications of Microeconomics (5th Edition), walter nicholson added a chapter on information economics (Chapter 10), which discussed the nature, value, insurance, moral hazard and adverse selection of information, while other chapters discussed information and Pareto efficiency, advertising and information. Joseph stiglitz in 1993 and Dick in 1995 respectively incorporated the contents of micro-information economics into their textbooks published successively. The former includes inferior market and unfavorable choice, incentive mechanism, search, advertisement, government information policy, incomplete information of labor market, and the latter includes inferior market information. Market signals, moral hazard, principal-agent problems, incentive mechanism and information problems in the labor market.
Since 1995, the works of micro-information economics have been increasing. Donald E. Campbell's "Incentive: Incentive and Information Economics" (Cambridge University Press, 1995) focuses on the incentive environment, mechanism design and improvement, and discusses the hidden action, hidden characteristics, reputation, resource allocation of private goods and public goods, and social cost and efficiency in incentives. In Blackwell Published Ltd (1997), Ian Molho discussed four parts: adverse selection, market signals, moral hazard and incentive mechanism design. Ines Marjo-Stadhle and David Perez-Castrillo discussed the basic information model, moral hazard, adverse selection, signal theory and its application in their Introduction to Information Economics: Incentives and Contracts (Oxford University Press, 1997).
The research content and scope of uncertainty economics overlap with micro-information economics, and a few works are simply named uncertainty and information economics, such as Information and Uncertainty Economics edited by John J. mccall (University of Chicago Press, 1982) and Uncertainty and Information Economics by Lafonte (1997). The latter book systematically analyzes uncertainty, risk, information structure, accidental market theory, complete expected equilibrium theory in incomplete market, capital market theory, insurance market theory, information theory transmitted through price, adverse selection and exchange rate theory, moral hazard and exchange rate theory. As early as 1986, C. Mckenna also discussed adverse selection, market signals and search theory in the Economics of Uncertainty.
In addition, the theoretical writings of contemporary economic game theory basically bring adverse selection, moral hazard, incentive mechanism and market signals into the analytical framework. In Basil Blackwell Ltd. (1994), Eric Rasmusen systematically expounded the relationship between game theory and micro-information economics from the aspects of game theory, information asymmetry and application, and specifically discussed reputation, moral hazard, adverse selection and signal theory, as well as their applications in negotiation, action, pricing, market entry and industrial organization behavior. In David M. Kreps's Microeconomics Course (1990 edition) (Harvester Wheatsheaf), the combination of microeconomic theory and game theory is quite wonderful, and many subtleties in Zhang's Game Theory and Information Economics (Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, etc.), 1997) seem to benefit from this textbook.
The second angle is to study how to use information to realize the optimal information economy from the perspective of statistical decision-making. Jacob Marsac, the late former president of American Economic Association, and kenneth j. arrow, a famous economist, have made unique achievements in this field. The concept of "information economics" was first proposed by Marsac in 1959. During the research in 1960s and 1970s, he gradually established the theory of information system economics to choose the best information system. This theory was expanded by economists such as Arrow, Marshall Jovic and Noguchi Yukihiro. After 1980s, the theory of optimal information system selection became the frontier of management accounting theory, and Robert Scarpens (65438-0985), a British accounting professor, made a special comment on it in The Overview of Management Accounting Development. At present, Marsac's theory is mostly introduced into the information economics courses offered by some university management schools in the United States. In Marsac's view, information economics comes from decision science, which specializes in how to choose the best information system or the best information structure.
1984, Aro compiled 1949- 198 1 8 papers published in the year, and published them with the title of Basil Blackwell Ltd as the fourth volume of his personal collection. Obviously, although this is only a collection of essays on micro-information economics, rather than a formal summary of micro-information economics theory, most of the issues involved in this collection belong to the basic research topics of micro-information economics, as he said in Economics, "The papers in this book were written separately for a long period of time, and their evolution revealed the changes in the research focus in the field of information economy for readers." Arrow's argument seems to tell us clearly that information economics, like any discipline, has different focuses, hot spots and frontier fields in different periods. Just because a certain field is no longer the key field of information economics, it cannot be mistaken for not belonging to the research category of information economics.