Listed below are the latest versions of my research projects.

Published Papers

Bad News Turned Good: Reversal Under Censorship (with Egor Starkov) [link], American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, vol.14, no.2, May 2022, pp.506-560

Abstract: Sellers often have the power to censor the reviews of their products. We explore the effect of these censorship policies in markets where some consumers are unaware of possible censorship. We find that if the share of such “naive” consumers is not too large, then rational consumers treat any bad review that is revealed in equilibrium as good news about product quality. This makes bad reviews worth revealing and allows the seller to use them as a costly signal of his product's quality to rational consumers. 

Working papers

Timing of Predictions in Dynamic Cheap Talk: Experts vs. Quacks (with Egor Starkov) [pdf]

Abstract: The paper studies a dynamic communication game in the presence of adverse selection and career concerns. A forecaster of privately known competence, who cares about his reputation, chooses the timing of the forecast regarding the outcome of some future event. We find that in all equilibria in a sufficiently general class earlier reports are more credible. Further, any report hurts the expert’s reputation in the short run, with later reports incurring larger penalties. The reputation of a silent expert, on the other hand, gradually improves over time.

The Limits of Social Learning (with Egor Starkov) [pdf]

Abstract: This paper studies strategic communication in the context of social learning. Product reviews are used by consumers to learn product quality, but in order to write a review, a consumer must be convinced to purchase the item first. When reviewers care about welfare of future consumers, this leads to a conflict: a reviewer today wants the future consumers to purchase the item even when this comes at a loss to them, so that more information is revealed for the consumers that come after. We show that due to this conflict, communication via reviews is inevitably noisy, regardless of whether reviewers can commit to a communication strategy or have to resort to cheap talk. The optimal communication mechanism involves truthful communication of extreme experiences and pools the moderate experiences together.