A Framework for Measuring Information Asymmetry

Abstract

Information asymmetry occurs when an imbalance of knowledge exists between two parties, such as a buyer and a seller, a regulator and an operator, and an employer and an employee. It is a key concept in several domains, in particular, in economics. We propose in this work a general logic-based framework for measuring the information asymmetry between two parties. A situation of information asymmetry is represented by a knowledge base and a set of questions. We define the notion of information asymmetry measure through rationality postulates. We further introduce a syntactic concept, called minimal question subset (MQS), to take into consideration the fact that answering some questions allows avoiding others. This concept is used for defining rationality postulates and measures. Finally, we propose a method for computing the MQSes of a given situation of information asymmetry.