Assortative Information Disclosure

Anton Kolotilin and Alexander Wolitzky

No 2020-08, Discussion Papers from School of Economics, The University of New South Wales

Abstract: We consider a standard persuasion problem in which the receiver’s action and the state of the world are both one-dimensional. Fully characterizing optimal signals when utilities are non-linear is a daunting task. Instead, we develop a general approach to understanding a key qualitative property of optimal signals: their assortative structure, which describes the overall pattern of what states are pooled together. We derive simple conditions—driven by intuitive economic properties, such as supermodularity and submodularity of preferences—for the optimality of positive and negative assortative patterns of information disclosure. Our approach unifies a wide range of previous findings and generates new applications.

Keywords: persuasion; information design; assortative matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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