Competition in persuasion: An experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wu, Wenhao; Ye, Bohan
• 署名单位: ShanghaiTech University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.12.003
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 72-89
• 关键词: Bayesian persuasion; multiple senders; laboratory experiment; Quantal response equilibrium

摘要

We experimentally investigate whether competition stimulates information revelation, by comparing two Bayesian persuasion models. One model has one sender (Kamenica and Gentzkow, 2011), and the other has two competing senders who move sequentially (Wu, 2022). The one-sender treatment provides strong support for Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011), where the sender uses a noisy signaling device and the receiver complies with his suggestions. In the two-sender treatment, we find that: (1) overall, senders reveal more information; (2) the first sender uses the fully-revealing device more frequently than the sender in the one-sender treatment; (3) the second sender exhibits a competitive behavior pattern; (4) the receiver uses information from both sides. However, contrary to Wu (2022), competition does not lead to full information. To rationalize the behavior, we use the Quantal Response Equilibrium model to explain the features of the empirical results.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.