Research

Working Papers

1. Isaac, Robert Mark, R. Vijay Krishna, and Rivin Perinchery. "On the Relevance of Irrelevant Information: Evidence from a Monty Hall Experiment" (Accepted)

Abstract: The Monty Hall (MH) Problem refers to a game where decision-makers systematically fail to be Bayesian when provided with a noisy signal of the true state of the world. Presenting the problem in a more intuitive framework has been shown to increase Bayesian updating by 40 percentage points. We extend this intuitive framework, offering participants even more “obviously dominant” strategies and, after choosing such a strategy, ask them to make a second decision following the revelation of irrelevant information. Our main finding is that in spite of choosing ex ante dominant strategies, some agents nonetheless react to irrelevant information—information that should not affect the ranking of actions after Bayesian updating—by choosing strategies that (i) were ex ante dominated, and (ii) are not consistent with Bayesian updating. We find that exposure to our extension does not lead to more Bayes-consistent behavior in the original MH problem.

2. Perinchery, Rivin. “Speaking Fast & Slow: Disclosure Timing in Sender-Receiver Games”

Abstract: We consider a sender who observes the state and chooses between disclosing the state or spending time and cost to utilize an imperfect reporting device. The sender’s payoff is maximized if the receiver guesses the state is good, while the receiver’s payoff is maximized by correctly identifying the state. The sender can utilize the device in the bad state to persuade and extract surplus from the receiver. Extraction is contingent on the sender’s ability to hide the origin of messages, sender disclosures versus device reports, from the receiver. Due to the time requirement and state-dependent utilization of the test, a sophisticated receiver can infer the state if the sender does not strategically choose their disclosure time. We model interaction, solve for all Bayesian Nash equilibria, and conduct an experiment varying the visibility of disclosure time. Consistent with theoretical benchmarks, treatment subjects’ difference in disclosure times between states are 28.04% smaller than control subjects with similar test utilization.

Works in Progress

Perinchery, Rivin, Dmitry Ryvkin, and Anastasia Semykina. "Democracy, Inequality, and Collective Loss Mitigation"

(Analysis Stage - To be presented at the 2025 NA-ESA meetings)

Perinchery, Rivin. "Optimal Contracts without Monetary Transfers"

(Analysis Stage - Presented at the 2024 NA-ESA meetings and the 2024 Southern Economic Association meetings)

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