Strategic Information Revelation When Experts Compete to Influence

Abstract

We consider a persuasion game where multiple experts with potentially conflicting self-interests attempt to persuade a decision-maker, or, a judge. The judge prefers to take an action that is most appropriate given the true state of the world but the experts' preferences over the actions (i.e., agenda) are independent of the state. The judge has no commitment power and takes his best action given the experts' reports. Experts have private types: an informed expert observes the state but an uninformed expert does not. An expert cannot lie but an informed expert may conceal information by pretending to be uninformed. We offer a general characterization of the equilibrium. We show that an increase in the quality of an expert (i.e., his prior likelihood of being informed) can reduce the judge's ex-ante expected payoff. Moreover, the judge's expected payoff may be maximized when the experts have identical (but extreme) agenda rather than conflicting self-interest.