Communication via intermediaries

Maksymilian Kwiek

Games and Economic Behavior, 2020, vol. 121, issue C, 190-203

Abstract: A model of communication with two features is presented: inattentive receivers, who are heterogeneous in their inattention, and the intermediaries, whose preferences are not aligned with each other or with the preferences of the initial sender. The sender faces a dilemma how to shape her message to maneuver the intermediaries into telling the final receivers what she considers important. A sincere communication policy and competition between the intermediaries are optimal if three conditions hold: the intermediaries have opposite preferences as to what the final receivers should learn, they are symmetric in their communication capacities and the sender is benevolent towards final receivers. Otherwise, the sender may benefit from a more hands-on intervention—selecting a self-censoring communication policy over sincerity or a single intermediary over competition.

Keywords: Inattention; Communication; Information theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825620300208
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:gamebe:v:121:y:2020:i:c:p:190-203

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.02.005

Access Statistics for this article

Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai

More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().