Andrew Rhodes

(Toulouse School of Economics)

will give a presentation on

Personalization and Privacy Choice

Abstract: This paper studies consumers' privacy choices when firms can use their data to make personalized offers. We first introduce a general framework of personalization and privacy choice, and then apply it to personalized recommendations, personalized prices, and personalized product design. We argue that due to firms' reaction in the product market, consumers who choose to share their data often impose a negative externality on other consumers. Due to this privacy-choice externality, too many consumers share their data relative to the consumer optimum; moreover, more competition, or improvements in data security, can reduce aggregate consumer surplus by encouraging more consumers to share their data.

Joint with Jidong Zhou.