Dispersed knowledge

Dispersed knowledge is a concept in economics referring to information that is dispersed throughout the marketplace, and is not in the hands of any single player.

All players in the market have imperfect knowledge; however, they all have an impressive indicator of everyone else's knowledge and intentions, and that is the price.

The price both indicates information that the player does not know, and by deciding to buy, sell or abstain at that price it also gives the player a chance to bring his knowledge to bear and reflect itself within the price.

This viewpoint is popular especially among Austrian School economists such as Hayek.