The Elgar Companion to Information Economics

Introduction
Information is an important component of the current and foreseeable “operating system” of the economy. Economists tend to analyze the information economy using their standard tools, but information is different than most economic goods.
Information displays economic paradoxes: it is abundant and valuable; costly to produce with a marginal cost of zero; a substrate for learning and literacies but also a source for overload and anxiety; information piracy is controversial, but often socially beneficial; much information is available at no direct payment. The ever-increasing digitization and network embeddedness imply an unbreakable link between content and technology. New technological affordances introduce innovation along with challenges to information markets and business models. Complexity is a natural ingredient of the world of information, be it complex networks, human cognition and behavior or the “smartness” introduced to ever-increasing parts of organizational and economic activity.

Purpose
As noted by Stiglitz (2000), information economics is expected to explain in detail “how and how well organizations and societies absorb new information, learn, adapt their behavior, and even their structures; and how different economic and organizational designs affect the ability to create, transmit, absorb, and use knowledge and information.” This Companion aims to address these issues by providing relevant theoretical framework and the latest empirical findings on the role of information in the economy and by discussing perspectives of information economics.

Recommended topics
The recommended list of topics includes, but is not restricted to:
• conceptual advances in information economics, in particular encompassing definition of information relevant for the 21st century, definition of information products/goods/services and their categories, characteristics of the information market and its organization, linkages between information market and markets for goods and services,
• in-depth analyses of concepts traditionally discussed by information economics (e.g. risk and uncertainty, asymmetric information, adverse selection, moral hazard, decision making, screening and signaling) in the modern, digital context where transparency and networks effects play a crucial role,
• methodological chapters on measurement of information in the economy and new research methods relevant for the digital age, e.g. machine learning, simulations, field experiments, as well as traditional methods,
• theoretical and empirical contributions increasing our understanding on why and how economic agents operating in various sectors (private, public and third sector) process and exchange information and what are micro- and macroeconomic implications of informational activity,
• positive and normative discussions on distributive aspects of asymmetry of information, market power of technology providers, disparity between private and social returns to information, as well as profits and rents in the information economy that may lead to suboptimal allocation of resources,
• discussions of opportunities and threats of digitalization analyzed through the prism of information economics,
• potential economic and social disruptions due to new information technologies and new policy implications of emergent phenomena,
• perspectives of information economics.
We also welcome contributions discussing the embeddedness of information economics in economics at large including the institutional and other contexts.
We invite researchers working in information economics and related areas, engaged both in mainstream and heterodox approaches.

Submission procedure
Researchers interested in writing a chapter for the Companion should submit their chapter proposal (800-1,000 words) along with relevant author information before August 15, 2021 via form available at: https://forms.gle/YddZrBnJfEMDCXqBA
The editors will communicate their decision to all applicants. Detailed guidelines about full submission and the review process will be sent to selected contributors by September 30, 2021.

Contact
Daphne R. Raban (School of Business Administration, University of Haifa): draban@univ.haifa.ac.il
Julia Włodarczyk (University of Economics in Katowice): julia.wlodarczyk@ue.katowice.pl