IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v192y2021ics0022053121000090.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic interpretations

Author

Listed:
  • Eliaz, Kfir
  • Spiegler, Ran
  • Thysen, Heidi C.

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran & Thysen, Heidi C., 2021. "Strategic interpretations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:192:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121000090
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2021.105192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053121000090
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2021.105192?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spiegler, Ran, 2018. "News and Archival Information in Games," CEPR Discussion Papers 12805, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. ,, 2011. "Manipulative auction design," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(2), May.
    3. Jacob Glazer & Ariel Rubinstein, 2012. "A Model of Persuasion with Boundedly Rational Agents," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1057-1082.
    4. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    5. Jehiel, Philippe, 2005. "Analogy-based expectation equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 81-104, August.
    6. Prat, Andrea & Kennedy, Patrick, 2017. "Where Do People Get Their News?," CEPR Discussion Papers 12426, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Jacob Glazer & Ariel Rubinstein, 2014. "Complex Questionnaires," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1529-1541, July.
    8. Jacob Glazer & Ariel Rubinstein, 2004. "On Optimal Rules of Persuasion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1715-1736, November.
    9. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    10. , & ,, 2006. "A study in the pragmatics of persuasion: a game theoretical approach," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 395-410, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joshua Schwartzstein & Adi Sunderam, 2021. "Using Models to Persuade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 276-323, January.
    2. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Koessler, Frédéric, 2020. "Cheap talk with coarse understanding," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 105-121.
    3. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran & Thysen, Heidi C., 2021. "Persuasion with endogenous misspecified beliefs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. Spiegler, Ran, 2021. "Modeling players with random “data access”," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo, 2018. "Rational attitude change by reference cues when information elaboration requires effort," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 90-107.
    2. Ennio Bilancini & Leonardo Boncinelli, 2014. "Persuasion with Reference Cues and Elaboration Costs," Working Papers - Economics wp2014_04.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    3. Alessandro Ispano & Péter Vida, 2020. "Custodial Interrogations," THEMA Working Papers 2020-05, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Burdea, Valeria & Montero, Maria & Sefton, Martin, 2023. "Communication with partially verifiable information: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 113-149.
    5. Penczynski, Stefan P., 2016. "Persuasion: An experimental study of team decision making," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 244-261.
    6. Penélope Hernández & Bernhard von Stengel, 2014. "Nash Codes for Noisy Channels," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1221-1235, December.
    7. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    8. Miura, Shintaro, 2014. "A characterization of equilibrium set of persuasion games with binary actions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 55-68.
    9. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran & Thysen, Heidi C., 2021. "Persuasion with endogenous misspecified beliefs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Winand Emons & Claude Fluet, 2019. "Strategic communication with reporting costs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 341-363, October.
    11. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler, 2019. "Partial Language Competence," Working Papers hal-03393108, HAL.
    12. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran & Thysen, Heidi C., 2021. "Persuasion with endogenous misspecified beliefs," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109842, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Kolotilin, Anton, 2015. "Experimental design to persuade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 215-226.
    14. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Koessler, Frédéric, 2020. "Cheap talk with coarse understanding," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 105-121.
    15. Tsakas, Elias & Tsakas, Nikolas, 2021. "Noisy persuasion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 44-61.
    16. Midjord, Rune, 2012. "Competitive Pressure and Job Interview Lying: A Game Theoretical Analysis," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    17. Gieczewski, Germán, 2022. "Verifiable communication on networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    18. Kuvalekar, Aditya & Lipnowski, Elliot & Ramos, João, 2022. "Goodwill in communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    19. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/3b2230a4419v9ojcpu27tsdrtb is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Bianchi, Milo & Jehiel, Philippe, 2015. "Financial reporting and market efficiency with extrapolative investors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 842-878.
    21. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 577-619.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Persuasion; Bounded rationality; Model misspecification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:192:y:2021:i:c:s0022053121000090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.