• October 19 & 26: no seminar (holidays)

• November 02. Scott Saas (HEC): Bad Reputation in Repeated Cheap Talk

Abstract: I examine a class of continuous-state cheap talk games where the receiver is uncertain about the bias of the sender. Only one of the two sender types can meaningfully communicate with the receiver; the other will only induce the highest possible action. I study the two-period version of this game, where the state changes each period but the sender's bias is persistent. I show that high levels of reputation are detrimental to communication, but due to a novel mechanism: the low-bias sender chooses to send a revealing message in every state, which causes the high-bias sender to deviate from the pooling message. This causes collapses in communication to be discontinuous with respect to the level of reputation. At lower levels of reputation, communication is improved only if the low-bias sender is misaligned with the receiver; at sufficiently high levels, only babbling outcomes can be sustained. Further, a receiver may prefer to interact with a more biased low sender type, as improved communication will be feasible. I show similar results hold in the finite-horizon case.

• November 09. Angelo Fanelli

• November 16. Stéphane Le Roux

• November 23. Nicolas Vieille

• November 30. TBA

• December 07. Davide Bordoli

• December 14. Double seminar: Bar Light and Dino Gerardi 

• December 21 & 28: no seminar (holidays)