Generalized Entropy Theory of Information and Market Patterns. Corporate Finance Review 2004

conference for helpful comments. David Faulkner’s detailed revision of this paper greatly improves its quality. 1 We develop an economic theory of information generalized from the entropy theory of information and show that it provides the foundation to understand market behavior. One fundamental result from this information theory is that information with higher value is in general more costly. Another fundamental result from this information theory is that the amount of information one can receive is the amount of information generated minus equivocation. The level of equivocation, which is the measure of information asymmetry, is determined by the correlation between the source of information and the receiver of information. How much information one can receive depends on the background knowledge of the receiver. In general, industry insiders understand information earlier than other investors; large investors, who are willing to spend more to collect and analyze information, generally utilize different kinds of information from small investors. This heterogeneity in information processing by the investment public offers a simple understanding of the price and volume patterns uncovered in the empirical studies, which have been unable to be explained by the existing theories in behavioral finance