In today’s data-saturated and highly interconnected world, the role of information has become central to economic activity, with profound implications for financial stability, political coordination, and social behavior. Yet, our understanding of how information influences outcomes in strategic settings remains fundamentally limited. Existing models are often confined to narrow settings, such as binary-action or supermodular games, and fail to capture the complexity of interactions driven by higher-order beliefs—beliefs about others’ beliefs, and so on.
The SInfoNiA project aims to break this barrier by developing a general, tractable, and operational framework for representing and analyzing strategic information in economic environments. It introduces a novel methodology in which information is modeled not as a detached object but as something intrinsically tied to the strategic structure of the game under study. This is done via a compact representation of beliefs and strategies using strategic types and automata, enabling the capture of intricate informational hierarchies while remaining computationally manageable.
The project pursues three overarching objectives:
1. Foundational: Establish a comprehensive theory of strategic information capable of capturing all economically relevant forms of information and belief hierarchies in a finite and tractable way.
2. Positive: Analyze how information dissemination affects coordination, economic stability, and outcome selection—especially in areas like global games, bank runs, and trade networks.
3. Normative: Design information structures and incentive mechanisms that can guide policy and institutional design, from auctions to social norm interventions.
By enabling a richer understanding of how information shapes strategic interaction, SInfoNiA is expected to have high impact across theoretical and applied economics. It contributes tools for more robust predictions in uncertain environments, illuminates the fragility or resilience of economic norms, and opens new avenues for information design in markets and institutions. The project also connects deeply with the social sciences and humanities by addressing issues of public communication, norm change, and institutional stability—areas where information, beliefs, and coordination are central.
In sum, SInfoNiA sets the stage for a new generation of research in information economics. Its results will inform both theory and practice by helping academics, policymakers, and designers understand not just what information is valuable, but why, how, and to whom.
