The Value of Information and Circular Settings

Abstract: We present a universal concept for the Value of Information (VoI), based on the works of Claude Shannon's and Ruslan Stratonovich that can take into account very general preferences of the agents and results in a single number. As such it is convenient for applications and also has desirable properties for decision theory and demand analysis. The Shannon/Stratonovich VoI concept is compared to alternatives and applied in examples. In particular we apply the concept to a circular spatial structure well known from many economic models and allow for various economic transport costs.