Stefan Dodds
Ph.D
Candidate
| Department of Economics | Tel: (613) 533-2270 |
| Dunning Hall, Queen's University | Fax: (613) 533-6668 |
| Kingston, Ontario, Canada | E-mail: doddss@qed.econ.queensu.ca |
| K7L 3N6 | Web: www.econ.queensu.ca/pub/students/doddss |
| Curriculum Vitae |
| Thesis: |
| Title: | "Economic Aspects of Individual Privacy and Confidentiality" |
| Supervisor: | Robin Boadway |
| Expected Completion: | Summer, 2003 |
| Research Interests: |
| Public Economics, Microeconomics, Political Economy |
| Research Papers: |
| 1. "Privacy and Endogenous Monitoring Choice When Private Information is a Public Good" [pdf] |
| This paper examines why economies endow agents with a degree of personal privacy, even when (a) "no privacy" is ex-post (Pareto) efficient, and (b) a costless monitoring technology exists. A government can provide more of a public good only by identifying "valuable" agents from a population of n. All agents report their type to the government --- truthfully or not --- unsure if they, or others, are being observed. When n is small, it is shown that increasing monitoring effectiveness can actually lead to ex-post inefficiency. Political equilibria are also characterized, where agents vote to constrain the government's monitoring effectivenes but not its ability to levy penalties or rewards. When n is large, all such equilibria are efficient; however, a utilitarian government may not implement taxes to reward honest reporting, nor impose penalties to punish it, even when these options ensure full revelation. Legislating a "right to privacy", by contrast, is always inefficient. |
| 2. "Confidentiality Rules and Welfare:
A Dynamic Contracting Approach with Two Principals". Job Market Paper [pdf] [figures] |
| Personal characteristics are indirectly revealed in mechanisms where agents self-select from a menu of options set by an initial principal. These (revealed) characteristics are valuable to other principals when they are correlated with economic variables of interest. This paper examines the incentives of information gatherers to commit to keep indirectly revealed information confidential, using a dynamic contracting model in which agents contract sequentially with different principals. Perfect Bayesian Equilibria are characterized when principals cannot commit to confidentiality. If agents are farsighted and sufficiently patient, (i) principals seek confidentiality legislation as a commitment device, and (ii) agents as a whole do strictly worse under confidentiality. This result is contrary to the popular view that confidentiality legislation is enacted to protect the interests of those who provide information. The paper also derives conditions when the sharing of information maximizes total surplus: these results have policy implications for the implementation of confidentiality rules in the public and private sectors. |
| References: |
| Robin Boadway | Ruqu Wang | Sumon Majumdar |
| Professor, Department of Economics |
Professor, Department of Economics |
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics |
| Queen's University | Queen's University | Queen's University |
| Kingston, ON, Canada | Kingston, ON, Canada | Kingston, ON, Canada |
| Tel: (613) 533-2266 | Tel: (613) 533-2272 | Tel: (613) 533-2274 |
| boadwayr@qed.econ.queensu.ca | wangr@qed.econ.queensu.ca | sumon@qed.econ.queensu.ca |