AØKK08321U Seminar: Economics of Privacy CANCELED

Volume 2015/2016
Education

M.Sc. of Economics

The seminar is primarily for students at the MSc of Economics

Content

This seminar deals with the small but growing field of the “Economics of Privacy”.

This area of economics uses the “economics toolkit” to analyze how privacy(regulations) affect economic efficiency, welfare and the distribution of welfare.

Students are expected to find a research question related to privacy. Then they will write a short paper on their question using the tools of economics they have learned during the Bachelor and in other Master courses (e.g. modeling the question as a game or contracting situation, empirical analysis etc.).

Learning Outcome

Research questions could, for example, be related to the following topics:

  • Agency problems in data holding/gathering entities
  • Impact of paywithyourprivatedata business models on products/services and consumer welfare
  • Customer databases and pricing
  • Privacy and consumer behavior (possibly using tools from behavioral economics)
  • Privacy and network effects
  • Externalities and strategic complementarity in information revelation (e.g. If everyone else publishes embarrassing photos, I can do so as well)
  • Value and valuation of privacy: The case of...
  • Privacy regulation and innovation
  • Privacy and empirical research: Challenges of rich data set

Mandatory reading:

  • “The Economics of Privacy” Acquisti, Taylor and Wegman 2015; http:/​/​ssrn.com/​abstract=2580411

 

Some other papers to get an idea of the field:

  • Posner “The Economics of Privacy”, American Economic Review, 1981, vol 71, pp 405409
  • Taylor “Consumer privacy and the market for customer information”, RAND, 2004, vol 35, pp 631650
  • Daughety and Reinganum “Public Goods, Social Pressure and the Choice between
  • Privacy and Publicity”, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2010, vol 2, pp 191221
  • Taylor and Wagman “Consumer privacy in oligopolisitc markets: Winners, losers and welfare”, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2014, vol 34, pp 8084
  • Pai and Roth “Privacy and Mechanism Design”, ACM SIGecon Exchanges, 2013, vol 12, pp. 829
  • Alessandro Acquisti (basically all his papers)
B.Sc. of Economics and active knowledge of Micro I, II, III (A,B,C)
After an introductory meeting at the start of the semester, students will work on their
projects. All projects will be presented and discussed during a two day session in the
second half of the semester (you have to present your paper and discuss the paper of
one other student). A draft version of your paper has to be handed in one week before
the presentation. The deadline for handing in the final version is two weeks after the
presentation.

First meeting: Early February, will be scheduled in agreement with the students (e.g. doodle)
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Exam
  • 1
  • Preparation
  • 187
  • Seminar
  • 18
  • Total
  • 206
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Oral examination, 40 min under invigilation
A written seminar paper and a oral presentation for the others participans at the seminar of 20 minutes presentation + 10 minutes discussion by discussant + 10 minutes general discussion
Exam registration requirements

Attendance on the seminar. The mandatory commitment paper and seminar paper have been handed in at deadline.

Aid

Al aids for the written seminarpaper.

For the oral presentation the slices for the presentation. The teather can specifiy what els is allowed.

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
up to 20 % censorship at the seminarpaper
Exam period

Deadline commitment paper: March 1, 2016

Date of final paper: A draft version of the paper has to be handed in one week before the presentation.

Date of presentations: Second half of April, will be scheduled in agreement with students (e.g. doodle)

Deadline for handing in the final version: Two weeks after the presentation.

For enrolled students more information about examination, exam/re-sit, rules etc. is available at the student intranet for Examination (English) and student intranet for Examination (KA-Danish).

 

Re-exam

Submission of a written assignment and an oral exam in which you may be examined in the presentations of the other students participating in the seminar during the enrolment period in question.

Criteria for exam assesment

The student must in a satisfactory way demonstrate that he/she has mastered the learning outcome of the course.