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Robust Information Acquisition Design

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  • Eric Gao
  • Daniel Luo

Abstract

We study the design of information acquisition games-environments where a designer contracts their action on Sender's choice of experiment and the realized signals about some state-and identify which predictions can be made absent knowledge about the prior. To do so, we characterize robust mechanisms: those which induce the same allocation rule (mappings from the state to actions) for all priors. These mechanisms take a simple form: they (1) incentivize fully revealing experiments, (2) depend only on the induced posterior, and (3) maximally punish pooling deviations. In binary action problems, all (and only) ordinally monotone allocation rules are robust. We apply our model to school choice and uncover a novel informational justification for deferred acceptance when school preferences depend on students' unknown ability. For general good allocation problems, we show all efficient allocations are robust, even when agent preferences feature state-dependent outside options and allocation externalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Gao & Daniel Luo, 2023. "Robust Information Acquisition Design," Papers 2312.02465, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2312.02465
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Pak Hung Au & Keiichi Kawai, 2021. "Competitive disclosure of correlated information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 767-799, October.
    2. Grossman, Sanford J, 1981. "The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product Quality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 461-483, December.
    3. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
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