Global manipulation by local obfuscation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Fei; Song, Yangbo; Zhao, Mofei
• 署名单位: University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen; Beihang University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2022.105575
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: coordination; information design; Regime-change game

摘要

We study adversarial information design in a regime-change context. A continuum of agents simultane-ously chooses whether to attack the current regime. The attack succeeds if and only if the mass of attackers outweighs the regime's strength. A designer manipulates information about the regime's strength to main-tain the status quo. Our optimal information structure exhibits local obfuscation: some agents receive a signal matching the regime's true strength, and others receive an elevated signal professing slightly higher strength. This policy is the unique limit of finite-signal problems. Public signals are strictly suboptimal, and in some cases where public signals become futile, local obfuscation guarantees the collapse of agents' coor-dination, making the designer's information disclosure time consistent and relieving the usual commitment concern.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.