Reputational cheap talk: influentialness and welfare

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Vong, Allen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Vong, Allen
author_facet Vong, Allen
contents A sender communicates private information about a hidden state to a receiver who seeks to match his action to that state. The sender strives to appear informed at the receiver's expense. I characterize informative equilibria under a broad class of signal structures and show that, when they exist, they are essentially unique. I show that informative equilibria can be noninfluential, in which case the receiver does not benefit from communication and relies only on prior information. My main results identify a complementarity that sufficiently precise prior information helps restore influential communication and characterize how the receiver's welfare depends on the quality of prior information. I also characterize how the sender's initial reputation for being informed shapes these results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_11877
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reputational cheap talk: influentialness and welfare
Vong, Allen
Theoretical Economics
A sender communicates private information about a hidden state to a receiver who seeks to match his action to that state. The sender strives to appear informed at the receiver's expense. I characterize informative equilibria under a broad class of signal structures and show that, when they exist, they are essentially unique. I show that informative equilibria can be noninfluential, in which case the receiver does not benefit from communication and relies only on prior information. My main results identify a complementarity that sufficiently precise prior information helps restore influential communication and characterize how the receiver's welfare depends on the quality of prior information. I also characterize how the sender's initial reputation for being informed shapes these results.
title Reputational cheap talk: influentialness and welfare
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11877