IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2501.09875.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Checking Cheap Talk

Author

Listed:
  • Ian Ball
  • Xin Gao

Abstract

We consider a sender--receiver game in which the receiver's action is binary and the sender's preferences are state-independent. The state is multidimensional. The receiver can select one dimension of the state to check (i.e., observe) before choosing his action. We identify a class of influential equilibria in which the sender's message reveals which components of the state are highest, and the receiver selects one of these components to check. The sender can benefit from communication if and only if she prefers one of these equilibria to the no-communication outcome. Similar equilibria exist when the receiver can check multiple dimensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Ball & Xin Gao, 2025. "Checking Cheap Talk," Papers 2501.09875, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2501.09875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.09875
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bijkerk, Suzanne H. & Karamychev, Vladimir & Swank, Otto H., 2018. "When words are not enough," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 294-314.
    2. , & ,, 2008. "Multi-sender cheap talk with restricted state spaces," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(1), March.
    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.
    4. , & ,, 2006. "A study in the pragmatics of persuasion: a game theoretical approach," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 395-410, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    2. Persson, Petra, 2018. "Attention manipulation and information overload," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 78-106, May.
    3. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler, 2010. "Strategic Communication Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1072-1099.
    4. Winand Emons & Claude Fluet, 2019. "Strategic communication with reporting costs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 341-363, October.
    5. Evans, R. & Reiche, S., 2022. "When is a Contrarian Adviser Optimal?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2222, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Sergiu Hart & Ilan Kremer & Motty Perry, 2017. "Evidence Games: Truth and Commitment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 690-713, March.
    7. Gregorio Curello & Ludvig Sinander, 2024. "Screening for Breakthroughs," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_562, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    8. Elchanan Ben-Porath & Eddie Dekel & Barton L Lipman, 2018. "Disclosure and Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1471-1501.
    9. Matthias Lang, 2020. "Mechanism Design with Narratives," CESifo Working Paper Series 8502, CESifo.
    10. Yeon-Koo Che & Wouter Dessein & Navin Kartik, 2013. "Pandering to Persuade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 47-79, February.
    11. P. Milgrom, 2009. "What the Seller Wont Tell You: Persuasion and Disclosure in Markets," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 3.
    12. Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez-Richet, 2019. "Evidence reading mechanisms," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 375-397, October.
    13. Ying Chen & Wojciech Olszewski, 2014. "Effective Persuasion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 319-347, May.
    14. Alessandro Ispano & Péter Vida, 2020. "Custodial Interrogations," THEMA Working Papers 2020-05, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    15. 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.
    16. Sher, Itai, 2011. "Credibility and determinism in a game of persuasion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 409-419, March.
    17. Hugo M. Mialon & Sue H. Mialon, 2013. "Go Figure: The Strategy of Nonliteral Speech," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 186-212, May.
    18. Burdea, Valeria & Montero, Maria & Sefton, Martin, 2023. "Communication with partially verifiable information: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 113-149.
    19. 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.
    20. Elchanan Ben‐Porath & Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman, 2019. "Mechanisms With Evidence: Commitment and Robustness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 529-566, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2501.09875. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.