Maxim Senkov

Abstract. 

We study a Bayesian persuasion model with two-dimensional states of the world, in which the sender (she) and receiver (he) have heterogeneous prior beliefs and care about different dimensions. The receiver is a naive agent who has a simplistic worldview: while he knows the correct marginal distributions of the dimensions, he ignores the dependency between the two dimensions of the state. As a benchmark, we first characterize optimal disclosure when the receiver is rational, i.e. when the receiver knows the correct prior distribution and thus shares a common prior with the sender. Then, we provide a characterization for the sender's gain from persuasion when the receiver is naive, and contrast our results to the benchmark. Finally, we show that the receiver benefits from having a simplistic worldview if and only if it makes him perceive the states in which his interest is aligned with the sender as less likely.

Abstract. 

We show that in delegation problems, a principal benefits from belief misalignment vis-a-vis an agent when the latter can flexibly acquire costly information. The agent optimally succumbs to confirmatory learning, leading him to favor the ex ante optimal action. We show that the principal prefers to mitigate this by hiring an agent who is ex ante more uncertain about which action is optimal. This is optimal even when the principal is herself biased towards some action: the benefit always outweighs the cost of a small misalignment. Optimally misaligned agent considers weakly more actions than an aligned agent. All results continue to hold when delegation is replaced by communication.

Abstract. 

We study Bayesian persuasion where the sender and receiver incur quadratic losses from deviating from their state-dependent bliss actions. Misalignment is captured by a flexible function mapping the sender’s bliss action to the receiver’s in each state. We focus on the state-pooling structure of the optimal signal---that is, which subset of states is revealed by a signal realization---and show how it is shaped by the form of misalignment. We provide a method that yields a tight, prior-independent upper bound on the optimal pooling structure. On the technical side, we justify the relevance of higher-order pooling---often dismissed as non-generic---by showing that it arises naturally under costly communication. On the applied side, we highlight the role of magnitude misalignment---where the sender and receiver agree on the direction of responses to state changes but disagree on their intensity.

Abstract.

We compare two scenarios in a model where politicians offer local public goods to heterogeneous voters: one where politicians have access to data on voters and thus can target specific ones, and another where politicians only decide on the level of spending. When the budget is small, or the public good has a high value, access to voter information leads the winner to focus on poorer voters, enhancing voter welfare. With a larger budget or less crucial public goods, politicians target a narrow group of swing voters, which harms the voter welfare.

Abstract. 

We analyze a principal-agent model in which a principal discloses a multistage project's progress to motivate the agent's effort. As the agent works on the project, it may reach both an intermediate milestone and final completion. Only the principal observes this progress and can commit to how to disclose it to the agent. The principal's goal is to maximize the agent's effort before an exogenous deadline, but working incurs costs for the agent, who only benefits upon final completion. We identify the optimal information policy, which depends on whether the project is promising---specifically, whether revealing solely the final completion can motivate the agent. If the project is promising, the optimal policy is to withhold information until an interim date, after which the final completion is disclosed immediately if achieved. If the project is not promising, the optimal policy is to disclose final completion immediately from the start, and then, after a later interim date, share all information.