Distinguished Lecture: Privacy in the Digital Age - an economist’s view

Programme

Jean Tirole will also give an economics seminar "The Morality of Markets" at the Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics (BETA) on 17 May 2023 from 10:00-11:30 - more information.

Privacy in the Digital Age - an economist’s view

Technological evolution (smart phones, AI, facial recognition, car sensors, social networks, digital money, smart cities…) has rendered insignificant the marginal cost of learning a person’s preferences and social graph. It has also introduced new, online private spheres and made the organization of offline ones cheaper. Should we worry about a surveillance society with concomitant abuses by powerful platforms and governments? What are the normative implications of the new environment? The presentation will develop an economist’s view on the question of privacy and will investigate how our behaviour with regards to consensual and divisive issues is likely to be altered.

Jean Tirole

Jean Tirole is honorary chairman of the Foundation JJ Laffont-Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and of the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), and scientific director of TSE-Partnership foundation. He is also affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, where he holds a visiting position, and the Institut de France. Professor Tirole’s research covers industrial organization, regulation, finance, macroeconomics and banking, and psychology-based economics. He has published over two hundred articles in international reviews, as well as twelve scientific books. Published in English in 2017, his latest book entitled Economics for the Common Good is accessible to a wide audience and available in a number of other languages. He is laureate of numerous international distinctions, including a 2007 CNRS gold medal and the 2014 Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

The lecture will be in English.