Information economics

Competitor analysis

Business

Recommender system

Private information retrieval

Ex-ante

Macroeconomics

Marketing

Economy

Intermediary

Economics

Microeconomics

Set (abstract data type)

Programming language

Information retrieval

Computer science

Information market

Computer security

Annual Review of Economics

We survey a recent and growing literature on markets for information. We offer a comprehensive view of information markets through an integrated model of consumers, information intermediaries, and firms. The model embeds a large set of applications ranging from sponsored-search advertising to credit scores to information sharing among competitors. We then zoom in to one of the critical elements in the markets for information: the design of the information. We distinguish between ex ante sales of information (the buyer acquires an information structure) and ex post sales (the buyer pays for specific realizations). We relate this distinction to the different products that brokers, advertisers, and publishers use to trade consumer information online. We discuss the endogenous limits to the trade of information that derive from the potential adverse use of information to the consumers. Finally, we discuss recommender systems and other information filtering systems that use artificial intelligence to predict ratings or preferences in markets for indirect information.

Markets for Information: An Introduction