Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16892
Authors: Ina Taneva; Thomas Wiseman
Abstract: We study information design in strategic settings when agents can publicly refuseto view their private signals. The requirement that agents must be willing to view theirsignals represents additional constraints for the designer, comparable to participationconstraints in mechanism design. Ignoring those constraints may lead to substantialdivergence between the designer’s intent and actual outcomes, even in the case wherethe designer seeks to maximize the agents’ payoffs. We characterize implementabledistributions over states and actions. Requiring robustness to strategic ignorance undoestwo standard information design results: providing information conditional onplayers’ choices rather than all at once may hurt the designer, and communicationbetween players may help her.
Keywords: incomplete information; games; information design; robustness; strategic ignorance; Bayes; correlated equilibrium
JEL Codes: C72; D82; D83
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| agents' choice to ignore signals (D82) | divergence between designer's intent and actual outcomes (L15) |
| agents' ability to refuse information (D82) | new constraints on designer (D10) |
| ignoring constraints (D10) | divergence between intended outcomes and actual outcomes (L15) |
| optimal information structure fails (D83) | worse payoffs for designer and agents (C78) |
| strategic ignorance (D80) | agents worse off than under baseline situation (D82) |