Strategic Reasoning in Persuasion Games: An Experiment

Arbeitspapier

We study experimentally persuasion games in which a sender (e.g., a seller) with private information provides verifiable but potentially vague information (e.g., about the quality of a product) to a receiver (e.g., a buyer). Various theoretical solution concepts such as sequential equilibrium or iterated admissibility predict unraveling of information. Iterative admissibility also provides predictions for every finite level of reasoning about rationality. Overall we observe behavior consistent with relatively high levels of reasoning. While iterative admissibility implies that the level of reasoning required for unraveling is increasing in the number of quality levels, we find only insignificantly more unraveling in a game with two quality levels compared to a game with four quality levels. There is weak evidence for learning higher-level reasoning in later rounds of the experiments. Participants display difficulties in transferring learning to unravel in a game with two quality levels to a game with four quality levels. Finally, participants who score higher on cognitive abilities in Raven's progressive matrices test also display significantly higher levels of reasoning in our persuasion games although the effect-size is small.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 18-1

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Noncooperative Games ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• Subject: Persuasion games ; verifiable information ; communication ; disclosure ; unraveling ; iterated admissibility ; prudent rationalizability ; common strong cautious belief in rationality ; level-k reasoning ; experiments ; cognitive ability

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schipper, Burkhard C. ; Li, Ying Xue
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of California, Department of Economics
• (where): Davis, CA
• (when): 2018

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/187497
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET