Strategic transmission of costly information
Strategic transmission of costly information
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战略性地传递昂贵的信息
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发表时间：
1994
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
D. Austen
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作者：
D. Austen
通常情况下，一个人的决定至少部分基于从另一个人那里收到的信息。当代理人的收益既取决于前者的决策又取决于后者的信息时，知情者就有动力试图通过战略性地操纵所传递的信息来使决策者的决策偏向于他或她的利益。在一篇开创性的论文中，Crawford 和 Sobel (1982)（以下简称 C/S）在抽象的发送者/接收者博弈的背景下研究了这种战略信息传输。克劳福德和索贝尔模型的变体已被广泛应用，并且随着应用的变化，对“类型”的解释也经常发生变化。在某些情况下，“类型”是指自然给出的偏好参数，例如，在讨价还价理论中（例如，法雷尔和吉本斯（1989），马修斯（1989）），而在其他情况下，例如，立法决策或专家证词-“类型”或多或少是指有关决策如何映射到最终结果的技术信息，因此是获得的信息（例如，吉利根） 和 Krehbiel (1987)、Milgrom 和 Roberts (1986)）。当必须获取信息时，人们很自然地认为获取信息的成本很高。否则，这些信息就没有理由分布不对称。只要接收者能够确定地——或者至少准确地推断——发送者是否被告知，并且只要消息是廉价的谈话，那么战略信息传输就没有问题（除了是否被告知之外）。然而，在很多情况下，假设接收者具有此类知识是不合适的。一种可能性是接收者可能知道发送者有一些相关信息，但不确定这些信息的质量。第二种可能更重要的可能性是接收者无法判断（潜在的）发送者是否不知情。除其他外，这个问题构成了“无知”作为法律辩护不可接受的理由（如果可以接受，那么“知情”的恶棍就会模仿“不知情”的违法者）；导致选民对声称对非法军火交易一无所知的政客持怀疑态度；并使 SEC 对区分内幕交易与合法的良好判断的问题敏感。因此，存在一种内在的不对称性，即发送者通常可以验证至少拥有某些信息，但验证任何知识的缺乏通常非常困难
IT IS OFrEN THE CASE that an individual's decision is at least partly based on information received from another. And when the agents' payoffs depend on both the former's decision and on the latter's information, there is an incentive for the informed individual to attempt to bias the decision maker's decision in his or her favor by strategically manipulating the information transmitted. In a seminal paper, Crawford and Sobel (1982) (hereafter, C/S) study such strategic information transmission in the context of an abstract sender/receiver game. Variants of the Crawford and Sobel model have been applied widely, and as the application varies so often does the interpretation of "type." In some cases, "type" refers to a preference parameter given by Nature-as, for example, in bargaining theory (e.g., Farrell and Gibbons (1989), Matthews (1989)), whereas in other settings-for instance, legislative decision making or expert testimony -"type" refers to more or less technical information concerning how decisions map into final consequences and, as such, is acquired information (e.g., Gilligan and Krehbiel (1987), Milgrom and Roberts (1986)). When the information has to be acquired, it is natural to suppose the acquisition is costly; for otherwise, there is no reason why such information is asymmetrically distributed. So long as the receiver can observe surely-or, at least, accurately infer-whether the sender is informed, and so long as messages are cheap-talk, there is no issue here for strategic information transmission (save whether to become informed at all). However, there are many circumstances when it is inappropri- ate to assume the receiver has such knowledge. One possibility is that a receiver may know that a sender has some relevant informa- tion, but be uncertain of the quality of this information. A second, perhaps more important, possibility is that a receiver is unable to tell whether a (potential) sender is uninformed. Inter alia, this problem constitutes the rationale for "ignorance of the law" being inadmissible as a legal defense (were it admissible, then "informed" miscreants would mimic "uninformed" transgressors); leads voters to be skeptical of politicians claiming ignorance of illegal arms deals; and makes the SEC sensitive to problems in distinguishing insider trading from legitimate good judgement. So there is an intrinsic asymmetry in that it is generally possible for, say, senders to verify possession of at least some information, but it is typically prohibitively difficult to verify any lack of knowledge