Image versus Information: Changing Societal Norms and Optimal Privacy
分析了利用社会形象促进合意行为的成本与收益，研究隐私程度如何在社会执行与学习之间取得最优权衡，并刻画其随经济随机与信息结构的变化。
We analyze the costs and benefits of using social image to foster desirable behaviors. Each agent acts based on his intrinsic motivation, private assessment of the public good, and reputational concern for appearing prosocial. A Principal sets the general degree of privacy, observes the social outcome, and implements a policy: investment, subsidy, law, etc. Individual visibility reduces free riding but makes aggregate behavior (“descriptive norm”) less informative about societal preferences (“prescriptive norm”). We derive the level of privacy (and material incentives) that optimally trades off social enforcement and learning, and we characterize its variations with the economy’s stochastic and informational structure.