Going Public: Communication in Collective Decisions

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Du, Zhicheng, Li, Yingkai, Xu, Boli
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Du, Zhicheng
Li, Yingkai
Xu, Boli
author_facet Du, Zhicheng
Li, Yingkai
Xu, Boli
contents A principal and $n\ge 2$ agents can launch a project if the principal proposes it and at least $k$ agents accept. Their individual payoffs from the project depend on an ex ante unknown state. The principal can conduct a test to learn about the state and then communicate her findings to the agents via cheap talk. This paper focuses on comparing two communication regimes: public and private messaging. We show that public messaging is weakly dominant: any outcome implementable under private messaging can also be implemented under public messaging. Moreover, in a canonical environment with linear payoffs, we characterize the principal's optimal test in each regime and show that public messaging can be strictly dominant if and only if there exist two agents who are the principal's conflicting allies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_03621
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Going Public: Communication in Collective Decisions
Du, Zhicheng
Li, Yingkai
Xu, Boli
Theoretical Economics
Computer Science and Game Theory
A principal and $n\ge 2$ agents can launch a project if the principal proposes it and at least $k$ agents accept. Their individual payoffs from the project depend on an ex ante unknown state. The principal can conduct a test to learn about the state and then communicate her findings to the agents via cheap talk. This paper focuses on comparing two communication regimes: public and private messaging. We show that public messaging is weakly dominant: any outcome implementable under private messaging can also be implemented under public messaging. Moreover, in a canonical environment with linear payoffs, we characterize the principal's optimal test in each regime and show that public messaging can be strictly dominant if and only if there exist two agents who are the principal's conflicting allies.
title Going Public: Communication in Collective Decisions
topic Theoretical Economics
Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03621