Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries
Year: 1999
Type: article
Abstract: I discuss the role of intermediaries that search out the information of privately informed parties and then choose what to reveal to uninformed parties. The focus is on the strategic manipulation of information by these certification intermediaries. I show that in a class of environments the optimal choice for a monopoly intermediary is to reveal only whether quality is above some minimal standard. Despite this minimal information transmission, the intermediary can capture a large share of the surplus. I also show that competition among the intermediaries can lead to full information revelation.
Source: The RAND Journal of Economics
DOI: 10.2307/2556078
Author: Alessandro Lizzeri
Institution: Princeton University
Language: English
Topic: Game Theory and Applications
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2068624556