The Economics of Uncertainty and Information [Hardcover]

Jean-Jacques Laffont (Author), John P. Bonin (Translator), Hélène Bonin (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262121360 | ISBN-13: 978-0262121361 | Publication Date: March 1, 1989

The Economics of Uncertainty and Information may be used in conjunction with Loffont's Fundamentals of Economics in an advanced course in microeconomics. Both texts provide a thorough account of modern thinking on the subject and a wealth of carefully chosen examples and problems.The first four chapters of The Economics of Uncertainty and Information summarize the essential tools of the analysis of uncertainty and information: the theory of individual behavior under uncertainty, the measures of risk aversion and the measures of risk, and the notions of certainty equivalence and information structure. Subsequent chapters introduce the theory of contingent markets, model systems of incomplete markets and define the concept of a perfect foresight equilibrium, cover two fundamental institutions for sharing risk - the stock market and insurance, show how the transmission of information by prices renders information structures endogenous, and study personalized exchange with asymmetric information.Each chapter concludes with a list of suggested readings and with auxiliary sections which go into more detail about certain aspects of the subject. The book concludes with review problems and exercises.Jean Jacques Laffont is Professor of Economic Sciences at the Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse and Director of Studies at I'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

About the Author

Jean-Jacques Laffont is Professor of Economics at the Universite des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse and the Institut Universitaire de France and Director of the Institut d'Economie Industrielle.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 303 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262121360
• ISBN-13: 978-0262121361
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Textbook and Great Manual, June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Economics of Uncertainty and Information (Hardcover)

This is really a great book: it is exhaustive and concise at the same time. Starting with the foundation of the theory of choice under uncertainty, it covers the topics of information structure, general equilibrium under uncertainty, and the typical asymmetric information topics: moral hazard and adverse selection. Given its completeness can be naturally used as a reference manual. And given the author's clarity of exposition can be also used as textbook.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint of heart, March 4, 2004

By 

"alynder" (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Economics of Uncertainty and Information (Hardcover)

I'm not entirely sure how to explain this book, as I didn't understand a word of it. I have also read "The Analytics of Information and Uncertainty", another book with heavy mathematical content, but one I found to be very good in scope and application. This text, however, seems to overuse mathematical methods. Economics is not about learning propositional mathematics, and just flicking through this book, there are models I already know, like the Edgeworth box diagram as applied to payoff states, and it was in a totally unrecognisable form! Even the fundamental theorems of welfare economics were garbled!

I would heartily recommend this text to anyone who has completed 2nd year university level mathematics courses, or is a university lecturer in Economics. If you're just an ordinary graduate with little interest in deep mathematical methods, there are better books out there.