IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v18y2026i2p192-227.html

Strategic Evidence Disclosure in Networks and Equilibrium Discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Leonie Baumann
  • Rohan Dutta

Abstract

A group of agents with ex ante independent and identically uncertain quality compete for a prize, awarded by a principal. Agents may possess evidence about the quality of those they share a social connection with (neighbors), and themselves. In one equilibrium, adversarial disclosure of evidence leads the principal to statistically discriminate between agents based on their number of neighbors (degree). We identify parameter values for which an agent's ex ante winning probability is monotone in degree. All equilibria that satisfy some robustness criteria lie between this adversarial disclosure equilibrium and a less informative one that features no snitching and no discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonie Baumann & Rohan Dutta, 2026. "Strategic Evidence Disclosure in Networks and Equilibrium Discrimination," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 192-227, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:192-227
    DOI: 10.1257/mic.20230285
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20230285
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24965
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mic.20230285?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:192-227. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.