Economics of Privacy and Personal Data

The economics of privacy investigates the trade-offs associated with the regulation of boundaries between individuals’ public and private spheres.

Theory and Application

The economics of privacy investigates the trade-offs associated with the regulation of boundaries between individuals’ public and private spheres. Of the many dimensions of privacy investigated in the law, psychology, or sociology literatures, economists have primarily focused on its informational dimension – the protection or disclosure of personal data. As such, the roots of this stream of research may be linked to the long-standing field of research on the economics of information at large, in which an economic agent may have access to private (albeit not necessarily personal) information pertaining to a transaction, and differential access to such information may affect market outcomes.

The economics of privacy recognizes that complex trade-offs can emerge from.