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Designing Persuasive Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Karun Adusumilli
  • Abhi Vemulapati

Abstract

Incentives in experimental design are often misaligned: experimenters design and finance experiments to seek regulatory approval, while regulators seek to maximize social-welfare. We propose a framework to resolve this conflict, wherein regulators set a minimum welfare threshold, and experimenters optimize designs subject to this constraint. It requires no knowledge of experimenters' private preferences or costs and mitigates strategic Bayesian persuasion. Under normal priors, Neyman-allocation is always the optimal-sampling strategy, regardless of specific objectives. We also characterize the optimal stopping-rule. A numerical study calibrated to clinical-trial data shows sample-size reductions of over 48% relative to classical designs attaining the same social-welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Karun Adusumilli & Abhi Vemulapati, 2026. "Designing Persuasive Experiments," Papers 2605.16703, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2605.16703
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anton Kolotilin & Roberto Corrao & Alexander Wolitzky, 2025. "Persuasion and Matching: Optimal Productive Transport," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(4), pages 1334-1381.
    2. Emeric Henry & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2019. "Research and the Approval Process: the Organization of Persuasion," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/1gr6n3t28b9, Sciences Po.
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    6. Aleksey Tetenov, 2016. "An economic theory of statistical testing," CeMMAP working papers CWP50/16, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Karun Adusumilli, 2026. "Continuous time asymptotic representations for adaptive experiments," Papers 2601.00739, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    8. Karun Adusumilli, 2025. "Risk and Optimal Policies in Bandit Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(3), pages 1003-1029, May.
    9. Karun Adusumilli, 2021. "Risk and optimal policies in bandit experiments," Papers 2112.06363, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
    10. Xu Kuang & Stefan Wager, 2024. "Weak Signal Asymptotics for Sequentially Randomized Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(10), pages 7024-7041, October.
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    12. Aleksey Tetenov, 2016. "An economic theory of statistical testing," CeMMAP working papers 50/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Emeric Henry & Marco Ottaviani, 2019. "Research and the Approval Process: The Organization of Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 911-955, March.
    14. Karun Adusumilli, 2022. "How to sample and when to stop sampling: The generalized Wald problem and minimax policies," Papers 2210.15841, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
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