In an information transmission situation, a sender's concern for its credibility could endow itself with an invisible power to control the receiver's decisions so that the sender can manipulate information without being detected. In this case, the sender can achieve its favored outcome without losing its credibility, which stays true even when the sender and the receiver have contradictory preferences. Therefore, the sender's concern for its credibility could result in less truthful signals from the sender and worse payoffs to the receiver. This is the paradox of credibility. This paper models this paradoxical role of the sender's credibility concern.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
7443.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
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Farrell, Joseph & Gibbons, Robert, 1989.
"Cheap Talk with Two Audiences,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1214-23, December.
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