Pandering to Persuade

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Che, Yeon-Koo; Dessein, Wouter; Kartik, Navin
• 署名单位: Columbia University; Yonsei University; Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.47
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 47-79
• 关键词: Cheap talk; INFORMATION; COMMUNICATION; authority

摘要

An agent advises a principal on selecting one of multiple projects or an outside option. The agent is privately informed about the projects' benefits and shares the principal's preferences except for not internalizing her value from the outside option. We show that for moderate outside option values, strategic communication is characterized by pandering: the agent biases his recommendation toward conditionally better-looking projects, even when both parties would be better off with some other project. A project that has lower expected value can be conditionally better-looking. We develop comparative statics and implications of pandering. Pandering is also induced by an optimal mechanism without transfers. (JEL D23, D82)