Essays on information economics

Chapter 1 analyses a two-period model of information selling where a risk-neutral seller offers binary signals of varying precision to a risk-neutral buyer. The seller cannot observe signal realisations, creating information asymmetry affecting pricing strategies. We demonstrate that only high-precision signals are offered in equilibrium, as they generate superior information rent whilst enabling natural market segmentation. The buyer reveals private information through their purchasing behaviour, enabling full rent extraction despite information asymmetry. Our analysis reveals that expanding signal menus does not enhance seller profits, and optimal mechanism design converges to perfect signals. These findings challenge conventional wisdom regarding product variety, demonstrating that quality concentration dominates menu diversification in information markets. Chapter 2 extends the dynamic information selling framework by introducing seller risk aversion. Whilst buyer behaviour remains unchanged, seller risk aversion fundamentally transforms optimal pricing strategies by creating tension between profit maximisation and revenue smoothing. Risk-averse sellers may abandon high-type only strategies in favour of conservative pricing that guarantees universal participation and predictable revenue. Our analysis identifies threshold levels of risk aversion at which optimal strategies shift, depending on signal quality and prior beliefs. Unlike risk-neutral sellers who prefer perfect signals, risk-averse sellers deliberately choose lower-quality signals to increase trading probability. These findings demonstrate that risk factors significantly influence information market design with implications for real-world providers. Chapter 3 examines whether deliberative mechanisms enhance collective decision-making when committee members possess opposed preferences regarding outcomes. Using cheap talk communication and majority voting, we analyse three equilibrium configurations and their efficiency properties. The analysis reveals that deliberative mechanisms improve upon decision-making based solely on prior beliefs only under restrictive conditions: signal informativeness must exceed the prior and the likelihood of recruiting well-intentioned agents must be sufficiently high. When either condition fails, principals achieve superior outcomes by foregoing deliberation entirely. These findings suggest that deliberation proves counterproductive rather than beneficial in most realistic environments with significant preference conflicts.