Persuading an audience: Testing information design in the laboratory

Andreas G. B. Ziegler

No 23-048/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: This paper examines how to persuade an audience of multiple receivers. Using two laboratory experiments, I investigate whether coordinating the audience’s actions using public signals or relying on private messages to miscoordinate actions is more effective in persuasion, how this depends on the audience’s strategic environment, and which channel information designers actually choose. The results match the theoretical prediction that public persuasion works best when the receivers’ environment features strategic complements. Informational incentives as captured in obedience constraint organize receivers’ responses. However, contrary to theory, public signals are as persuasive as private ones under strategic substitutes. When designing information, senders respond to this pattern by engaging more frequently in public communication, especially when the receivers’ environment features strategic complements, but persuade too aggressively.

Keywords: information design; Bayesian persuasion; laboratory experiment; Bayes correlated equilibria; obedience; recommendations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-08-23, Revised 2026-07-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-gth
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20230048

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