斯蒂格里兹的诺贝尔奖,就是因为他在信息经济学方面的研究。这是““信息”条的一部分。
The standard theorems that underlie the presumption that markets are efficient are no longer valid once we take into account the fact that information is costly and imperfect. To some, this has suggested a switch to the Austrian approach, most forcefully developed during the 1940s and later by friedrich hayek and his followers. They have not attempted to “defend” markets by the use of theorems. Instead, they see markets as institutions that have evolved to solve information problems. According to Hayek, neoclassical economics got itself into trouble by assuming perfect information to begin with. A much better approach, wrote Hayek, is to assume the world we have, one in which everyone has only a little information. The great virtue of free markets, he wrote, is that they allow each person to efficiently use his own information, and do not require that anyone have all the information. In this sense, Hayek noted, government planning requires the impossible—that a small body of officials have all this information.
The new information economics substantiates Hayek’s contention that central planning faces problems because it requires an impossible agglomeration of information. It agrees with Hayek that the virtue of markets is that they make use of the dispersed information held by different participants in the market. But information economics does not agree with Hayek’s assertion that markets act efficiently.
The fact that markets with imperfect information do not work perfectly provides a rationale for potential government actions. The older theory said that no government, no matter how well organized, could do better than markets. If that was true, then we had little need to inquire into the nature of government. The modern theory says that government might improve on matters, but to ascertain whether or not this is the case requires a closer examination of how governments actually behave, or might behave under various rules.
The modern study of political economy has uncovered many inefficiencies associated with government behavior, just as the modern study of firms has uncovered many inefficiencies associated with market behavior. An important line of research has focused on identifying how government differs intrinsically from other organizations in the economy (their powers and constraints, including the limitations on information that they face and their powers and incentives to acquire information) and, based on these distinctive features, on determining the appropriate economic roles of governments and markets.
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About the Author
Joseph E. Stiglitz is an economics professor at Columbia University. He was previously chief economist at the World Bank and chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. In 1979 he received the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Award, given every two years to the economist under age forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economics. He is a founding editor of the AEA’s Journal of Economic Perspectives. He shared the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences in 2001
- posted on 09/01/2009
刚跟一个ultra conservative的朋友谈信息,谈wiki,信息就来了。他说wiki是一个Infotainment。wiki上的确有非常多的娱乐信息。刚在制作中的电影立刻就有全部的信息出来。 I add a english title for you, relax, loosen up, where is your sense of humor?
infortainment is "information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers." [1] It is a neologistic portmanteau of information and entertainment, referring to a type of media which provides a combination of information and entertainment. According to many dictionaries [2] infotainment is always television, and the term is "mainly disapproving."[3] However, many self-described infotainment websites exist which provide a variety of functions and services. [4]
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