Strategic interpretations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eliaz, Kfir; Spiegler, Ran; Thysen, Heidi C.
• 署名单位: Tel Aviv University; Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah; University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105192
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Persuasion; bounded rationality; Model Misspecification

摘要

We study strategic communication when the sender's multi-dimensional messages are given an interpretation by the sender himself or by a proxy. Interpreting messages involves the provision of some data about their statistical state-dependence. Interpretation can be selective: different kinds of data interpret different sets of message components. The receiver uses this data to decipher messages, yet he does not draw any inferences from the kind of data he is given. In this way, strategic interpretation of messages can influence the receiver's understanding of their equilibrium meaning. We show that in a two-action, two-state setting, the sender can attain his first-best payoff when the prior on one state exceeds a threshold that decays quickly with message dimensionality. We examine the result's robustness to the critique that our receiver does not attempt any inferences from selective interpretations. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.