Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
沉默胜千言：静态议题下的动态廉价磋商
Silence speaks volumes: dynamic cheap talk over a static issue
摘要
I extend the canonical cheap talk model to a continuous-time setting in which a biased sender privately observes the state and strategically chooses when to communicate, while a receiver decides when to stop waiting and act. Waiting is costly because both players discount future payoffs. In equilibrium, information is gradually revealed through strategic silence: the sender’s silence at certain times signals valuable information, allowing the receiver to update her beliefs continuously. This generates an unraveling process in which increasingly high types are revealed over time under positive bias, and increasingly low types are revealed under negative bias. Learning remains incomplete, however, because waiting costs eventually induce the receiver to stop and make an educated guess. I derive conditions for the existence of this dynamic revelation equilibrium and show that strategic timing can enhance information transmission and receiver welfare relative to static cheap talk. I also show that multiple senders with opposing biases accelerate learning and increase the extent of revelation.
中文摘要
我将经典的廉价交谈模型扩展到连续时间框架中，其中，有偏见的发送者私下观察状态，并策略性地选择沟通时机，而接收者则决定何时停止等待并采取行动。等待是有成本的，因为双方都会对未来收益进行折现。在均衡状态下，信息通过策略性沉默逐渐揭示：发送者在特定时刻的沉默传递了有价值的信息，使接收者能够持续更新其信念。这产生了一个逐步揭示的过程，在正向偏见下，随时间推移，越来越高的类型被揭示；在负向偏见下，则是越来越低的类型被揭示。然而，学习过程并不完全，因为等待成本最终会促使接收者停止等待并做出有根据的猜测。我推导了这种动态揭示均衡存在的条件，并表明，与静态廉价交谈相比，策略性时机选择能增强信息传递并提高接收者的福利。我还证明，多个持有对立偏见的发送者会加速学习过程并增加揭示的程度。