Link to the University of Pittsburgh Homepage
Link to the University Library System Homepage Link to the Contact Us Form

THREE ESSAYS ON INFORMATION TRANSMISSION IN ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION GAMES

Sung, Yeol Yong (2010) THREE ESSAYS ON INFORMATION TRANSMISSION IN ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION GAMES. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)

[img]
Preview
PDF
Primary Text

Download (509kB) | Preview

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three chapters where we study information transmission in various environments.The first chapter analyzes the effect of the presence of an uninformed sender on the information transmission between an informed sender and the receiver. The sender is uninformed with a positive probability and it is not verifiable whether she is informed or not. In almost all equilibria, the uninformed sender pools with a subset of types of the informed sender. We show that there exists an equilibrium in which the informed sender's cheap talk message conveys more precise information and the informed sender is better off by the presence of the uninformed sender.In the second chapter, a buyer is uncertain of information on product qualities. We introduce a variable that generates social value of information, which is buyer's action such as the usage and maintenance of a product after purchase. If the buyer is concerned about his action, the seller has more incentive to reveal product information. Furthermore, more information is revealed as the variance of the quality is larger or as the average quality is lower. In this model, the certification cost is increasing in the sense that a better certificate is more costly. Then, there are multiple equilibria and the least level of revelation is ex ante Pareto optimal.In the third chapter, we study firms' voluntary disclosure in an oligopoly market for differentiated products in which firms are allowed to advertise a rival's product as well as their own product. We show that full information is revealed by a high quality firm's comparative advertisement, where the advertisement on the rival's product is negative. Moreover, full revelation is the unique equilibrium outcome. The results imply that by allowing for negative advertisement on rivals' products, a society can increase consumers' welfare without mandatory disclosure laws.


Share

Citation/Export:
Social Networking:
Share |

Details

Item Type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Sung, Yeol Yongyys2@pitt.eduYYS2
Date: 1 October 2010
Date Type: Completion
Defense Date: 19 July 2010
Approval Date: 1 October 2010
Submission Date: 8 August 2010
Access Restriction: No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately.
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Schools and Programs: Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Economics
Degree: PhD - Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis Type: Doctoral Dissertation
Refereed: Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords: advertisement; certification; cheap talk; disclosure; uninformed sender
Other ID: http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08082010-165545/, etd-08082010-165545
Date Deposited: 10 Nov 2011 19:58
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2016 13:48
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9002

Metrics

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics


Actions (login required)

View Item View Item