ERIC Number: ED524856
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 117
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: ISBN-978-1-1244-5177-0
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Three Essays on the Economics of Information Systems
Jian, Lian
ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan
My dissertation contains three studies centering on the question: how to motivate people to share high quality information on online information aggregation systems, also known as social computing systems? I take a social scientific approach to "identify" the strategic behavior of individuals in information systems, and "analyze" how non-monetary incentive schemes motivate information provision. In my first study, I use statistical modeling to infer users' information provision strategies from their actions. Information system users' strategies for contribution (e.g., I only contribute if others have contributed a certain amount) are often not directly observable, but identifying their strategies is useful in system design. With my co-authors, Jeffrey MacKie-Mason and Paul Resnick, I constructed a maximum likelihood model with simultaneous equations to estimate strategic feedback reciprocation (i.e., I only provide feedback if you give me feedback first) among the traders on eBay. We found about 23% of the traders strategically reciprocate feedback. In my second study, I focus on truthful provision of information in information markets--markets in which the participants trade bets about future events. The resulting market price reflects an aggregated prediction for the event. Theory predicts that when traders' private information is substitutable--contains similar information--they profit most by trading honestly. But when traders' private information is complementary--contains exclusively different information--traders are better off bluffing, i.e., first trading dishonestly to mislead others and later profiting from others' mistakes. Using human-subject experiments, my co-author Rahul Sami and I found traders indeed bluff more in markets with complements than in markets with substitutes. In my third study, I use game theory to analyze two non-monetary mechanisms for motivating information provision: the minimum threshold mechanism (MTM), under which one can access the public goods if she contributes more than a threshold, and the ratio mechanism (RM), under which a user consumes at most an amount proportional to her contribution level. I found whenever RM can achieve the social optimum, MTM can achieve the same. Furthermore, if RM implements a no-exclusion equilibrium, the same outcome can always be implemented by MTM. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
Descriptors: Information Systems, Internet, Motivation Techniques, Incentives, Sharing Behavior, Information Transfer, Statistical Analysis, Models, Inferences, Search Strategies, Information Science, Feedback (Response), Computation, Prediction, Games, Probability, Deception, Futures (of Society), Game Theory, Economic Impact, Computer Science
ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Tel: 800-521-0600; Web site: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml
Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A