Strategic Ignorance and Information Design by Ina Taneva

Join us for another event in the Microeconomics Research Seminar Series, Autumn Term 2023.

Join Ina Taneva from the School of Economics, University of Edinburgh, who will present their research on Strategic Ignorance and Information Design.

Abstract

We study information design in strategic settings when agents can publicly commit to not view their private signals. Ignoring the constraints that agents must be willing to view their signals may lead to substantial divergence between the designer’s intent and actual outcomes, even in the case where the designer seeks to maximize the agents’ payoffs. We introduce the appropriate equilibrium concept - robust correlated equilibrium - and characterize implementable distributions over states and actions. Requiring robustness to strategic ignorance can explain qualitative properties that standard information design cannot: the designer may provide redundant or even counterproductive information, asymmetric information structures may be strictly optimal in symmetric environments, providing information conditional on players’ choices rather than all at once may hurt the designer, and communication between players may help her. Optimality sometimes requires that players ignore their signals with positive probability.

This seminar will be held in the Economics Common Room and via zoom on Monday 25 September 2023 at 3.00pm. This event is open to all levels of study and is also open to the public.

To register your place and gain access to the webinar, please contact the seminar organisers.

This event is part of the Microeconomics Research Seminar Series.