Publications:
Joshi, P (2024) Fear of Exclusion: The Dynamics of Club Formation, Theory and Decision
This paper explores a dynamic model of sequential club formation in which identical individuals join or leave clubs over time and their preferences depend solely on the number of members in the club. There exists a unique optimal-sized club which maximises per-period payoff of each individual. To study the implications of the dynamic setting, we use a benchmark game of a finite number of periods which mimics the static framework. Implied by the dynamic nature of the problem, we find a new source of inefficiency that is caused by so called fear of exclusion phenomenon where individuals fear being excluded from a relatively superior sustainable club, which is not necessarily optimal. An unusual behaviour may be observed in which individuals strictly prefer to form sub-optimal sized clubs. A specific class of equilibria is analysed to examine such behaviour.
Joshi, P (2025) Lobbying: Influence under Micro-targeting, Social Choice and Welfare
Interest groups (IGs) can potentially influence policy making process or policy outcomes in their favor by using different lobbying tactics. In this paper, we study how and under what circumstances IGs exert influence on policy outcomes when they can use Micro-targeting (MT) as a lobbying strategy, i.e. the IGs can send group specific messages to a subset of voters. In the absence of IGs, the political candidate does not have means to privately commit a policy to a group of voters, who might vote for her after observing such policy commitment. Recognizing this, IGs can get policy favours from the political candidate in exchange for facilitating candidate's private commitment. We identify conditions in which MT is influential, in the sense of leading to different policy outcome in the presence of IGs. The analysis fully characterizes the set of influential MT equilibria. The like minded IG does not have any direct influence, but their presence could severely impact the direct influence of unlike minded IGs given the competing candidates are ideologically motivated. Moreover, this may also lead to polarisation between the two competing candidates.
Work in Progress
Micro-targeting and Campaign Contribution: Comparing Influence of Two Different Lobbying Strategies
Interest Groups (IGs) can potentially use more than one lobbying tactics to exert influence on the policy-makers. Micro-targeting (MT) has recently been utilised as an effective lobbying tool in which specific information is targeted to a specific group of voters. On the other hand, the literature has widely looked at the influence of providing campaign contributions (CC),. In this paper, we study which lobbying strategy is more effective to sway policy-makers’ decision in the IG’s favour? Furthermore, the other questions we explore is what mix of these two lobbying strategies should an IG choose, and how does the use of one lobbying tactic affect the effectiveness of the other? The focus of this study is on identifying a source of MT externality that might increase the cost of CC, that can be used to gain access to the policymaker.
Navigating Dynamic Communication with Varied Information Costs and Conflicting Senders
We consider a situation in which an uninformed principal can acquire information about the relevant state of nature from the two agents, who have different information acquisition technology and might have different preferences. The two agents sequentially choose information strategy and reveal partial, full or no information to the principal. The analysis explores the decision making in such situation.