Language Constraints in Multi-Sender Communication Games
This paper studies optimal communication under language constraints. The model features multiple Senders and a single Receiver, in which the only barrier to communication is a limitation imposed by language: Senders are identically informed, all players have aligned incentives, the state space is infinite, but the Senders’ message spaces are each finite. Thus, while players prefer full information revelation, their language does not allow for it. Efficient communication has two important properties. First, Senders use language heterogeneously. Second, Senders assign non-convex meaning to individual messages, while ensuring that the meaning of message profiles remain convex.
Information Selling under Prior Disagreement (with Ernesto Rivera Mora)
This paper studies information selling in environments in which (1) the seller has limited commitment power, and (2) the buyer and the seller hold different beliefs about the state of the world. We show that in environments with a common prior, there is no advantage to selling information sequentially; the seller cannot achieve higher revenue than by offering an experiment that fully reveals the state in one period. We find that if, on the other hand, the agents agree to disagree about their prior beliefs, the seller achieves a strictly higher revenue by gradually selling information over multiple periods. Moreover, increasing the number of periods of the selling protocol strictly increases the seller’s expected revenue. In addition, in some environments, it is optimal for the seller to first offer a free sample test, i.e., an experiment that partially reveals information, at no charge.
Two-worker competition in gift-exchange: assessing intention-based reciprocity and inequity aversion (with Francesco Bogliacino)
In this article, we study a three-person gift exchange, where two workers compete for a bonus. We derive the equilibrium properties of the models of sequential reciprocity and inequity aversion. We then prove a comparative statics theorem, when one worker becomes more productive. We show that compared with the predictions of the outcome-based model, those of the intention-based model contrast sharply. This creates an ideal setting in which to perform a controlled experiment to test them. Our results largely support sequential reciprocity.
Strategic Advice for Skill Acquisition
Persuading a Reciprocal Agent