We analyze efficiency and nonfundamental volatility in a class of generalized beauty-contest economies with endogenous information. As in models of rational-expectations equilibria, agents learn about exogenous states and endogenous aggregate actions. As in models of rational inattention, agents choose their information structures subject to a cost. We identify conditions on information costs that guarantee the existence of efficient or inefficient equilibria; we further identify conditions that guarantee the existence or nonexistence of equilibria with zero nonfundamental volatility. Mutual information, the cost typically assumed in rational-inattention models, guarantees the existence of an efficient equilibrium with zero nonfundamental volatility.

We study optimal policy in a business-cycle setting in which firms hold dispersed private information about, or are rationally inattentive to, the state of the economy. The informational friction is the source of both nominal and real rigidity. Because of the latter, the optimal monetary policy does not target price stability. Instead, it targets a negative relation between the nominal price level and real economic activity. Such leaning against the wind helps maximize production efficiency. An additional contribution is the adaptation of the primal approach of the Ramsey literature to a flexible form of informational friction.