Asymmetric Information, Information Externalities, and Efficiency: The Case of Oil Exploration
研究私人信息和信息外部性如何影响石油勘探投资的事后效率，发现企业预期油田规模大时过度钻探、预期小时钻探不足，明确产权可消除投资不足但过度投资仍因企业不愿披露私人信息而存在。
In this article we examine the efect of private information and information externalities on the ex post eficiency of investment in oil exploration. We show that too much drilling tends to occur ifjirms believe that the area is likely to contain a sizeable pool of oil, and too little drilling occurs if the opposite is true. Bargaining with well-defined property rights to the information externality can eliminate underinvestment, but overinvestment remains a problem because firms have an incentive not to disclose their private information.