IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jogath/v52y2023i4d10.1007_s00182-023-00848-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic transmission of imperfect information: why revealing evidence (without proof) is difficult

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Foerster

    (Bielefeld University)

Abstract

In our cheap-talk setting, an expert privately observes multiple binary signals, her soft evidence, about a continuous state of the world and then communicates with a decision-maker. While direct transmission of evidence entails communicating the underlying signals, indirect transmission of evidence entails communicating a summary statistic of her evidence. We first establish that fully informative equilibria exist if the conflict of interest is small. Otherwise, direct transmission of evidence is impossible, as withholding one part of the soft evidence in the communication necessarily induces incentives to manipulate the report on the other part. On the contrary, indirect transmission of evidence remains partially informative for intermediate conflicts of interest. Finally, we introduce the possibility of certification. We show that, if the costs of certification are low, the expert can fully reveal her evidence regardless of the conflict of interest.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Foerster, 2023. "Strategic transmission of imperfect information: why revealing evidence (without proof) is difficult," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(4), pages 1291-1316, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jogath:v:52:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s00182-023-00848-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s00182-023-00848-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00182-023-00848-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00182-023-00848-1?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler, 2010. "Strategic Communication Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1072-1099.
    2. , & , & ,, 2014. "Dynamics of information exchange in endogenous social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), January.
    3. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Information Aggregation in Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Working Papers 169, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    4. Li, Ming & Madarász, Kristóf, 2008. "When mandatory disclosure hurts: Expert advice and conflicting interests," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 47-74, March.
    5. Lipman Barton L. & Seppi Duane J., 1995. "Robust Inference in Communication Games with Partial Provability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 370-405, August.
    6. Péter Eső & Ádám Galambos, 2013. "Disagreement and evidence production in strategic information transmission," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(1), pages 263-282, February.
    7. Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2010. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2361-2382, December.
      • Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2006. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," Working Papers 2006-10, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, revised Oct 2009.
    8. , & ,, 2008. "Multi-sender cheap talk with restricted state spaces," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(1), March.
    9. Ivanov, Maxim, 2010. "Informational control and organizational design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 721-751, March.
    10. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez‐Richet, 2014. "Certifiable Pre‐Play Communication: Full Disclosure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1093-1131, May.
    11. Chakraborty, Archishman & Harbaugh, Rick, 2007. "Comparative cheap talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 70-94, January.
      • Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2004. "Comparative Cheap Talk," Working Papers 2004-08, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    12. Rossella Argenziano & Sergei Severinov & Francesco Squintani, 2016. "Strategic Information Acquisition and Transmission," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 119-155, August.
    13. Goltsman, Maria & Hörner, Johannes & Pavlov, Gregory & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "Mediation, arbitration and negotiation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1397-1420, July.
    14. John Morgan & Phillip C. Stocken, 2008. "Information Aggregation in Polls," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 864-896, June.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/168 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Marco Battaglini, 2002. "Multiple Referrals and Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1379-1401, July.
    17. Ambrus, Attila & Lu, Shih En, 2014. "Almost fully revealing cheap talk with imperfectly informed senders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 174-189.
    18. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2004. "The art of conversation: eliciting information from experts through multi-stage communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 147-179, August.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4kpa2fek478tla1o86g6n9jb6v is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Daniel J. Seidmann & Eyal Winter, 1997. "Strategic Information Transmission with Verifiable Messages," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(1), pages 163-170, January.
    21. Forges, Francoise & Koessler, Frederic, 2005. "Communication equilibria with partially verifiable types," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 793-811, November.
    22. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    23. Schopohl, Simon, 2019. "Full revelation under optional verification," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 14-16.
    24. Froeb, Luke M & Kobayashi, Bruce H, 1996. "Naive, Biased, Yet Bayesian: Can Juries Interpret Selectively Produced Evidence?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 257-276, April.
    25. Manuel Foerster & Joël J van der Weele, 2021. "Casting Doubt: Image Concerns and the Communication of Social Impact," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2887-2919.
    26. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4kpa2fek478tla1o86g6n9jb6v is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Galeotti, Andrea & Ghiglino, Christian & Squintani, Francesco, 2013. "Strategic information transmission networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1751-1769.
    28. Gilat Levy & Ronny Razin, 2007. "On the Limits of Communication in Multidimensional Cheap Talk: A Comment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 885-893, May.
    29. Foerster, Manuel, 2019. "Dynamics of strategic information transmission in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    30. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    31. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01053478 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gerrit Bauch & Manuel Foerster, 2024. "Strategic communication of narratives," Papers 2410.23259, arXiv.org.
    2. Manuel Foerster & Daniel Habermacher, 2025. "Authority, Communication, and Internal Markets," Working Papers 361, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Authority and Specialization under Informational Interdependence," Working Papers 142, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    2. Li, Zhuozheng & Rantakari, Heikki & Yang, Huanxing, 2016. "Competitive cheap talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 65-89.
    3. Deimen, Inga & Szalay, Dezsö, 2014. "Smooth, strategic communication," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100333, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Migrow, Dimitri, 2021. "Designing communication hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Szalay, Dezső & Deimen, Inga, 2015. "Information, authority, and smooth communication in organizations," CEPR Discussion Papers 10969, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung & Wang, Joseph Tao-yi, 2015. "An experimental analysis of multidimensional cheap talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 114-144.
    7. Murali Agastya & Parimal Kanti Bag & Indranil Chakraborty, 2014. "Communication and authority with a partially informed expert," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 176-197, March.
    8. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    9. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez‐Richet, 2014. "Certifiable Pre‐Play Communication: Full Disclosure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1093-1131, May.
    10. Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2010. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2361-2382, December.
      • Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2006. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," Working Papers 2006-10, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, revised Oct 2009.
    11. Inga Deimen & Dezső Szalay, 2019. "Delegated Expertise, Authority, and Communication," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1349-1374, April.
    12. Lai, Ernest K., 2014. "Expert advice for amateurs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-16.
    13. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Information Aggregation in Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Working Papers 169, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    14. Foerster, Manuel, 2019. "Dynamics of strategic information transmission in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    15. Kovác, Eugen & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2009. "Stochastic mechanisms in settings without monetary transfers: The regular case," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1373-1395, July.
    16. Migrow, Dimitri, 2018. "Designing Communication Hierarchies," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 44, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    17. Hedlund, Jonas, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion by a privately informed sender," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 229-268.
    18. Wonsuk Chung & Rick Harbaugh, 2012. "Biased Recommendations," Working Papers 2012-02, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    19. Dmitry Sedov, 2023. "Almost-truthful interim-biased mediation enables information exchange between agents with misaligned interests," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(3), pages 505-546, September.
    20. Gordon Rausser & Leo Simon & Jinhua Zhao, 2015. "Rational exaggeration and counter-exaggeration in information aggregation games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(1), pages 109-146, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cheap talk; Soft evidence; Imperfect information; Strategic communication; Certification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • 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

    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:spr:jogath:v:52:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s00182-023-00848-1. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.