Networked information technology has led to unprecedented opportunities for exchanging information in a population of participants whose interests and needs vary over time. In particular, this project concerns populations of consumers looking for information products, and producers who possess products that others might be seeking. Substantial research has gone into studying how producers and consumers can settle the terms of a transaction for a particular good. However, there are many possible variations and combinations of information products and their prices that can be offered. A critical and poorly understood problem is how parties should position themselves in this vast information product and price space to differentiate themselves from competitors and attract those with whom they should transact. To address this problem, the investigators will use economic analysis and computer simulation to study how producers of information goods can learn to position themselves based on criteria such as price schedules and information content, and can adapt to changing consumer tastes where consumers might be making strategic buying decisions to affect producer positioning. This project will extend economic theory to account for these concerns, and create computational agents that can make adaptive, strategic decisions about product positioning.
