Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15709
Authors: Frederic Koessler; Vasiliki Skreta
Abstract: A designer is privately informed about the state and chooses an information disclosure mechanism to influence the decisions of multiple agents playing a game. We define an intuitive class of incentive compatible information disclosure mechanisms which we coin interim optimal mechanisms. We prove that an interim optimal mechanism exists, and that it is an equilibrium outcome of the interim information design game. An ex-ante optimal mechanism may not be interim optimal, but it is whenever it is ex-post optimal. In addition, in leading settings in which action sets are binary, every ex-ante optimal mechanism is interim optimal. We relate interim optimal mechanisms to other solutions of informed principal problems.
Keywords: interim information design; bayesian persuasion; informed principal; neutral optimum; strong neologism proofness; core mechanism; verifiable types
JEL Codes: C72; D82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Designer’s mechanism (D47) | Agents' beliefs (D83) |
| Designer’s mechanism (D47) | Agents' actions (L85) |
| Interim optimal mechanism (D51) | Agents' actions (L85) |
| Ex-ante optimal mechanism (D47) | Interim optimal mechanism (D51) |
| Interim optimal mechanism (D51) | Designer's interests (Z11) |
| Designer’s mechanism (D47) | Agents' decisions (D79) |