Cheap talk with multiple senders and receivers: Information transmission in ethnic conflicts

Satyam Kumar Rai () and Suraj Shekhar ()
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Satyam Kumar Rai: Ashoka University
Suraj Shekhar: Ashoka University

No 143, Working Papers from Ashoka University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We model a society with two ethnic groups in which the state of the world is uncertain. Without new information, ethnic conflict is inevitable. If there is an informed agent who knows the state of the world and can communicate via private cheap talk messages, can she prevent conflict? We find that while a peace-loving informed agent is unable to prevent conflict as she cannot communicate credibly with either ethnicity, a more aggressive informed agent can communicate information to her own ethnicity, and therefore prevent conflict with positive probability. Furthermore, we show that if each ethnicity has their own informed agent, then both ethnic groups receive information but, under some conditions, there is an informative equilibrium in the environment with one informed agent which generates a higher probability of peace than any informative equilibrium with two informed agents.

Pages: 30
Date: 2025-03-11
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