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Persuasion in Networks: Can the Sender Do Better than Using Public Signals?

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  • Yifan Zhang

Abstract

Political and advertising campaigns increasingly exploit social networks to spread information and persuade people. This paper studies a persuasion model to examine whether such a strategy is better than simply sending public signals. Receivers in the model have heterogeneous priors and will pass on a signal if they are persuaded by it. I show that a risk neutral or risk loving sender prefers to use public signals, unless more sceptical receivers are sufficiently more connected in the social network. A risk averse sender may prefer to exploit the network. These results still hold when networks exhibit homophily.

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  • Yifan Zhang, 2024. "Persuasion in Networks: Can the Sender Do Better than Using Public Signals?," Papers 2404.18965, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.18965
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    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18965
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    1. Sonin, Konstantin & Egorov, Georgy, 2019. "Persuasion on Networks," CEPR Discussion Papers 13723, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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