【 The Digital Star Seminar Series No.26 】Data Trade and Consumer Privacy

Date: 21 October 2022 (Fri) 
Time: 3:00pm - 4:30pm (Hong Kong Time, UTC+8)
Platform: Lizhou Hall on the fourth floor of Yuanzheng Qizhen Hotel

Host: Prof. Miaojun Wang (School of Economics, Zhejiang University)

Presenter: Jiadong Gu, Doctor of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Abstract：

This paper studies optimal mechanisms for collecting and trading data. Consumers benefit from revealing information about their taste to a service provider because this improves the service. However, the information is also valuable to a third party as it may extract more revenue from the consumer in another market called the product market. The paper characterizes the constrained optimal mechanism for the service provider subject to incentive feasibility. It is shown that the service provider sometimes sells no information or only partial information in order to preserve profits in the service market. Moreover, a ban on data trade may reduce social welfare because it makes it harder to price discriminate in the product market.

Intro to Jiadong Gu:

Jiadong Gu's main research fields are information economics and applied microeconomic theory. He is currently committed to the research projects of information economy, digital economy, industrial organization and financial intermediary. His research has been invited to exchange reports at domestic and international academic conferences for many times, and his papers on bank information disclosure have been accepted by the academic journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.

Organization：

- The Chinese University of Hong Kong-Zhejiang University Joint Research Center for Digital Economy

- China Digital Economy Research Center of School of Economics, Zhejiang University

- Zhejiang University Digital Economy Innovation Research Team

Intro to The Digital Star Seminar Series：

The Digital Star Seminar Series is co-hosted by the China Digital Economy Research Center of School of Economics, Zhejiang University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Zhejiang University Joint Research Center for Digital Economy. This series of seminars will study the development of the digital economy and China's economic transformation based on the practice of China's digital transformation. We will invite domestic and overseas scholars to share and discuss the latest research on the digital economy and the Chinese economy. We hope that this academic platform can become a paradise for the study of the digital economy. More importantly, it can generate insights that significantly impact the digital economy and Chinese economy, which will help promote digital transformation and high-quality economic development in Chinese society.