Essays on Information Economics

Résumé du livre

This dissertation studies different aspects of Bayesian persuasion. The first chapter introduces the content of the thesis. In the second chapter, we consider a setting where a decision maker chooses between the status quo and an alternative action under uncertainty. The uncertainty is two-dimensional and its realization in each dimension is independent. For each dimension, there is an expert who provides information only on that dimension. Both experts strictly prefer the alternative action and they simultaneously provide information to the decision maker. We compare the highest equilibrium payoff of the experts in this game with the payoff of an auxiliary game where the experts collude and can choose any information structure. We show that the experts strictly gain from collusion if and only if one of the experts can unilaterally persuade the decision maker to take the alternative action with positive probability. In the third chapter, we introduce the cost of information design problem where a decision maker acquires information subject to a cost selected by a designer. We show that when restricted to the family of convex and posterior-separable cost functions, the designer achieves the same level of utility as in the case where she herself chooses the information for the decision maker. When the cost functions are invariant to the labeling of the states, we show in an example that the designer induces partially informative information. We also introduce competition to the cost of information design problem where two designers simultaneously select the cost of information and the decision maker is subject to the minimum of the costs. We show in an example that the designers exhibit Bertrand-like behaviors and the unique equilibrium is for the designers to induce full information at zero cost. In the fourth chapter, we consider a Bayesian persuasion setting where a sender maximizes the probability of a receiver with private taste choosing a risky action. The sender designs a menu of information structures and can use information obfuscation, strategically making information structures costly for the receiver to process. We characterize the optimal menu. When information obfuscation strictly benefits the sender, a low-stakes receiver chooses a costless and less informative information structure, while a high-stakes receiver chooses a costly and more informative information structure. When information obfuscation is not helpful to the sender, the sender provides a single information structure. When the sender also charges a posted price when the receiver takes the risky action, information obfuscation is not helpful, and the sender provides full information and extracts all surplus.