Deciding Before You Are Persuaded

Torun Dewan and Kfir Eliaz

No 22113, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study how a decision maker can use a committed deadline to discipline a biased sender's information acquisition. Evidence arrives through public tests, and both investigation and waiting are costless. With sufficient time, the sender induces favourable decisions by eliminating unfavourable possibilities. A shorter deadline can instead make direct evidence the sender's only route to persuasion. We characterize the optimal deadline and show when it achieves perfect accuracy. For general discovery technologies, the gain compares undiscovered guilt with wrongly convicted innocence. Under continuous posterior paths and feasible stopping, no deadline improves accuracy.

Keywords: Bayesian persuasion; Information acquisition; Commitment; Deadlines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10
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