Social Value of Public Information: Comment: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con

The main result of Stephen Morris and Hyun Song Shin (2002) has been presented and interpreted as an anti-transparency result: more public information can be bad for social welfare. Some scrutiny of the result, however, shows that it is actually pro-transparency: except in very special circumstances, more public information is good. Furthermore, for a conservative benchmark of equal precision in public and private information, social welfare is higher than in a situation without public information.