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1、PersuasionandLimitedCommunicationItaiSherUniversityofMinnesotaThisVersion:February2009AbstractThispaperstudiesoptimalpersuasion.Aspeakermustdecidewhichargumentstopresentandalistenerwhichargumentstoaccept.Communicationislimitedinthattheargumentsavailabletot
2、hespeakerdependonherinformation.Optimalityisassessedfromthelistener'sperspectiveassumingthatthelistenercancommittoapersuasionrule.Ishowthatthisseeminglysimplescenario{introducedbyGlazerandRubinstein(2006){iscomputationallyintractable(formally,NP-hard).Howev
3、erundertheassump-tionknownasnormality,whichvalidatestherevelationprincipleinmechanismdesignenvironmentswithevidence(GreenandLaont1986,BullandWatson2007),Ishowthatthepersuasionproblemreducestoaclassicoptimizationproblem,leadingtoasimpleprocedureforitssoluti
4、on.Thisprocedurendsnotonlytheoptimalrule,butalsothecredibleimplementationoftheoptimalrule,i.e.,theequilibriumofthegamewithoutcommitmentleadingtothesameoutcomeastheoptimalrule.Normalityalsohasqualitativeconsequencesfortheoptimalrule.Inparticular,undernormal
5、ity,therealwaysexistsanoptimalrulewhichissymmetric:i.e.,exanteequivalentevidenceistreatedequivalently.Whennormalityfails,alloptimalrulesmaybeasymmetric;inotherwords,thelistenermaycategorizeevidenceinanarbitrarymanner,andbasehisdecisionsonthesecategoriesinor
6、dertoin
uencethespeaker'sreportingbehavior.JELClassication:C61,D82,D83.Keywords:communication,optimalpersuasionrules,credibility,commitment,evidence,maximum
owproblem.IamverygratefultoEddieDekelformanyvaluablecommentsandadvice.IwouldalsoliketothankDavidAu
7、sten-Smith,MarcianoSiniscalchi,AsherWolinsky,DavidRahman,ArielRubinstein,JesseBull,ElchananBen-Porath,MelissaKoenig,PeterSher,TomaszStrzalecki,andJanWerner.IamgratefultoEvsenTurkayforaconversationthatwasusefulfortheproofinSection4.2,andtoRakeshVohraforsugge
8、stingtherelationofthepersuasionproblemtothesetcoverproblem,aswellasanalternativeintegerprogramformulationofthepersuasionproblem.IamalsogratefultoseminarparticipantsatTheUniversityofBritishColumbia,Univ