Constructive versus Toxic Argumentation in Debates

Tymofiy Mylovanov and Andriy Zapechelnyuk

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2024, vol. 16, issue 1, 262-92

Abstract: Two debaters address an audience by sequentially choosing their information strategies. We compare the setting where the second mover reveals additional information (constructive argumentation) with the setting where the second mover obfuscates the first mover's information (toxic argumentation). We reframe both settings as constrained optimization of the first mover. We show that when the preferences are zero-sum or risk-neutral, constructive debates reveal the state, while toxic debates are completely uninformative. Moreover, constructive debates reveal the state under the assumption on preferences that capture autocratic regimes, whereas toxic debates are completely uninformative under the assumption on preferences that capture democratic regimes.

JEL-codes: D72 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20220114 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20220114.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:16:y:2024:i:1:p:262-92

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/mic.20220114

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().