EC 328 Economics of Information

This course examines incentive mechanisms at work in a wide range of environments to see if and how coordination can be achieved by informing and motivating individual decision makers. It also examines the performance of agents hired to carry out specific tasks, from taxi drivers, employees, to CEOs. Students will be introduced to a range of economic tools used to study models that explicitly involve contracting in economics and finance under imperfect and asymmetric information. The methods developed can be employed to investigate the performance of various institutions (e.g., voting schemes) to see if they enhance general well-being. Techniques studied include agency theory and signaling models. In addition, some applications of the tools will be covered (e.g., labor market, credit market and insurance markets).