Test design under voluntary participation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rosar, Frank
• 署名单位: University of Bonn
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.06.002
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 632-655
• 关键词: Test design; Bayesian learning; concavification; False positive; asymmetric information; Voluntary participation

摘要

An agent who is imperfectly informed about his binary quality can voluntarily participate in a test that generates a public signal. I study the design of the test that allows for optimal learning of the agent's quality when the agent strives for a high perception of his quality but is averse towards perception risk. For a large class of reduced-form utility functions that reflect these properties, the optimal test is binary and not subject to false positives. I uncover the forces that drive this result and show how the problem with endogenous participation can be transformed into a problem to that the concavification approach from the Bayesian persuasion literature applies. Furthermore, for a non-reduced version of my model where the designer estimates the agent's quality but suffers either more from false positives or from false negatives, I show that the same type of test is optimal. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.