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I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Janeway Institute in Cambridge University.
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Janeway Institute in Cambridge University.
My research specializes in game theory, with broad themes of:
My research specializes in game theory, with broad themes of:
- information,
- social norms/trust,
- heterogeneity/inequality, and
- growth/development.
Working Papers
Working Papers
Robust Communication through Mixed Messages
Robust Communication through Mixed Messages
Current Version Slides ArXiv: 2403.13983 Online Appendix
Summary: I explore how non-material incentives and heterogeneity affect strategic communication, specifically in settings where the sender and receiver have nearly independent preferences. Aligning preferences and money-burning has drastically different effects in settings with 'quantitatively' vs. 'qualitatively' differentiated choices.
Models of communication with independent preferences are knife-edge: communication is 'theoretically' possible, but vanishes with slight heterogeneity. Communication can be restored by 'nudging' preferences to be slightly state-dependent in a compatible manner. I characterize communication in this setting through graph-theoretic representations of equilibria called communication graphs. Compatibility restricts these communication graphs to be acyclic and connected, and requires compatibility between the graph and the dependence in the sender's preference.
Sympathy (ie. aligning preferences) promotes communication in quantitative settings, but can impede communication in similar 'qualitative' settings — such as a seller possessing vertically differentiated products. Money-burning (e.g. advertising) can be a powerful persuasion tactic in the latter cases.
Ripple Effects I: Sustaining Robust Norms in Large Communities
Ripple Effects I: Sustaining Robust Norms in Large Communities
Current Version Slides Online Appendix
Summary: I explore how even slight altruism can ground pro-social norms in large societies through a mechanism of social influence. Higher strategic homogeneity results in more stable norms.
I model a large anonymous society where individuals repeatedly face a dilemma between acting selfishly or contributing to social surplus. If agents care even slightly about the social surplus then pro-social norms can be sustained through a desire to set an example for others.
In contrast to other models of cooperation in this setting, these norms can be robust to a sub-population of purely selfish actors. There are a continuum of robust equilibria, more robustness equilibria are associated with higher strategic homogeneity.
Increasing the publicity of bad actions does little to increase the robustness of equilibria.
(Ab)using Indifference: Purification in Communication and Repeated Games
(Ab)using Indifference: Purification in Communication and Repeated Games
Current Version Slides ArXiv:2602.23098
Summary: I show that powerful techniques of analyzing communication and repeated games share the same general structure, making the resulting equilibria incompatible with private preferences. I discuss methods of amending the technique and analyze the resulting constraints on the structure of repeated game equilibria with imperfect monitoring.
This has severe implications for equilibria of repeated games with imperfect monitoring: pure equilibria are necessarily perfect public equilibria, non-PPE equilibria have a 'reputation' structure that I describe, and belief free equilibria do not exist.
Works in Progress
Works in Progress
Ripple Effects II: Inequality and the Erosion of Social Trust
Ripple Effects II: Inequality and the Erosion of Social Trust
Summary: I study how heterogeneous altruism (linked to varying opportunity costs of participating in norms) associated with wealth produce a negative link between inequality and pro-social norms/social trust, and that unbalanced growth can erode norms despite increasing altruism at the individual level.
I characterize several transformations of the wealth distribution that promote social trust: wealth floors always have a positive effect, while wealth caps can have a positive effect on trust in unequal societies (despite reducing the altruism between agents). Uniform wealth and progressive wealth redistribution also both promote trust.
Generalized Gentrification Externalities
Generalized Gentrification Externalities
Summary: The presence of other agents with similar preferences over limited options introduces an externality due to the increased likelihood of being outcompeted and thus obtaining a less preferred option. I study how investment (in schools, neighbourhoods, or jobs) distorts preferences, and thus creates such an externality.
In particular, investing in more exclusive objects (according to the market) imposes a negative externality on those matched with less exclusive objects; while funding less exclusive objects has a positive externality on those matched with more exclusive objects.
'Bottom-up' investment in objects, reducing object inequality, is guaranteed to produce a positive externality while 'top-down' funding produces negative externalities. Gentrification specifically occurs when investment is unbalanced, increasing the exclusivity of an option relative to others.
This reasoning suggests that efforts to 'hierarchize' the market (for example, vertically ranking schools, or a culture emphasizing 'match prestige') reduce the efficiency of the market.
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