Eduardo Perez-Richet
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique
Fields:
Microeconomic Theory, Game Theory, Information Economics, Political Economics.Published Papers
Choosing Choices: Agenda Selection with Uncertain Issues
Abstract:
We study selection rules: voting procedures used by committees to choose whether to place an issue on their agenda. At the selection stage of the model, committee members are uncertain about their final preferences. They only have some private information about these preferences. We show that voters become more conservative when the selection rule itself becomes more conservative. The decision rule has the opposite effect. We compare these voting procedures to the designation of an agenda setter among the committee, and to a utilitarian social planner with all the ex interim private information.
Last version: July 2012.
(with Raphael Godefroy), Econometrica, 2013, 81, 1, 221-253.
A Note on the Tight Simplification of Mechanisms,
Abstract:
Paul Milgrom (2010) proposes to simplify mechanisms by restricting their message space. When doing so, it is important not to create new equilibria. A weakly tight simplification is one that does not create new Nash equilibria, a tight simplification is one that does not create new ε-Nash equilibria. This note offers characterizations of tightness. When the preference domain is that of continuous utility functions on the outcome space, the two notions are equivalent, and are also equivalent to the outcome closure property of Milgrom (2008).
Last version: August 2010
Economics Letters, 2011.
Working Papers
Certifiable Pre-Play Communication: Full Disclosure
Abstract:
This paper asks when pre-play communication with certifiable messages leads to full disclosure. More precisely, we consider Bayesian games augmented by a pre-play communication phase in which communication happens through simultaneous public announcements. We characterize the augmented games in which there exists a full disclosure sequential equilibrium with extremal beliefs (any unilateral deviation from full disclosure is attributed to a single type of the deviator). This characterization enables us to provide different sets of sufficient conditions for the existence of a full disclosure equilibrium that encompass and extend all known results in the literature, and are easily applicable. We use these conditions to obtain new insights on senders-receiver games, games with strategic complementarities, and voting with deliberation.
This version: September 2012
(with Jeanne Hagenbach and Frederic Koessler), revise and resubmit at Econometrica -- New Version.
Complicating to Persuade?
Abstract:
This paper addresses a common criticism of certification processes: that they simultaneously generate excessive complexity, insufficient scrutiny and high rates of undue validation. We build a model of persuasion in which low and high types pool on their choice of complexity. A natural criterion based on forward induction selects the high-type optimal pooling equilibrium.When the receiver prefers rejection ex ante, the sender simplifies her report. When the receiver prefers validation ex ante, however, more complexity makes the receiver less selective, and we provide sufficient conditions that lead to complexity inflation in equilibrium.
This version: February 2012
(with Delphine Prady).
Competing with Equivocal Information,
Abstract:
This paper studies strategic disclosure between multiple senders and a single receiver. The senders are competing for prizes awarded by the receiver. They decide whether to disclose a piece of information that is both verifiable and equivocal (it can influence the receiver both ways). Then the standard unraveling argument breaks down: if the commonly known probability that her information is favorable is sufficiently high, a single sender never discloses. Competition restores full disclosure only if some of the senders are sufficiently unlikely to have favorable information. When the senders are uncertain about each other's strength, however, all symmetric equilibria approach full disclosure as the number of candidates increases.
This version: July 2012
revise and resubmit at Games and Economic Behavior.
Information and Incentives in a Model of Contest between Large Groups
Abstract:
In a contest between two large teams, where both initial strengths and participation rates matter, how does the structure of the information of each group about the other one affect the outcome? In particular what is the right balance between private and public information? This paper shows that no modification of this balance can give an unambiguous advantage to any particular team: winning against relatively stronger groups when strong comes at the cost of losing against relatively weaker groups when weak. If the information structure is endogenously chosen ex ante by team leaders who decide the precision of the public information that flows to the other group, high precision obtains when the incentives to participate are high.
Last version: April 2009