Econometrica: Nov, 1982, Volume 50, Issue 6

Information Acquisition in a Noisy Rational Expectations Economy

https://doi.org/0012-9682(198211)50:6<1415:IAIANR>2.0.CO;2-Y
p. 1415-1430

Robert E. Verrecchia

We present a model of information acquisition in a competitive market in which traders can learn both from costly (and diverse) private enquiry and price, which costlessly (but partially) reveals the total amount of information known to all traders. Our major purpose is to show that an equilibrium exists in such a market: that is, there exists a rational expectations competitive equilibrium in which the amount of costly diverse information each trader acquires is endogenously determined. From this result we investigate the change in the informativeness of price relative to changes in the level of noise, the cost of acquiring information, and the distribution of traders' risk preferences.