Publications:
Herings, P. J.-J., Peeters, R., Tenev, A. P., & Thuijsman, F. (2021). Naïve imitation and partial cooperation in a local public goods model. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 191, 162-185. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.07.025
Peeters, R. & Tenev, A.P. (2018). Number of Bidders and the Winner’s Curse. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 18(3)
Working papers:
Information Design for Weighted Voting (R&R at Economic Theory)
(with T. Kerman)
(Mathematica and Matlab_n & Matlab_s code)
Abstract:
We consider a sender who wishes to persuade multiple receivers to vote in favor of a proposal and sends them correlated messages that are conditional on the true state of the world. The receivers share a common prior, wish to implement the outcome that matches the true state, and have homogeneous preferences. However, they are heterogeneous in their voting weights. We consider both behavioral and sophisticated voters. When voters are behavioral, public communication is optimal if and only if there is a veto player. For sophisticated voters, we establish lower bounds on the sender's gain from persuasion for general voting quotas and show that the sender can often improve upon public communication. Additionally, we consider a specific application which imposes more structure on the voting weights and quota, and fully characterize optimal communication for it. Finally, in an extension, we show that even when behavioral voters have heterogeneous prior beliefs, public communication is optimal if and only if there is a veto player.
Friends Are Thieves of Time”: Heuristic Attention Sharing in Stable Friendship Networks (R&R at Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization)
Abstract:
This paper studies a model of network formation in which agents create links following a simple heuristic -- they invest their limited resources proportionally more in neighbours who have fewer links. This decision rule captures the notion that when considering social value more connected agents are on average less beneficial as neighbours and node degree is a useful proxy when payoffs are difficult to compute. The decision rule illustrates an externalities effect whereby an agent's actions also influence his neighbours' neighbours. Besides complete networks and fragmented networks with complete components, the pairwise stable networks produced by this model include many non-standard ones with characteristics observed in real life networks like clustering and irregular components. Multiple stable states can develop from the same initial structure -- the stable networks could have cliques linked by intermediary agents while sometimes they have a core-periphery structure. The observed pairwise stable networks have close to optimal welfare. This limited loss of welfare is due to the fact that when a link is established, this is beneficial to the linking agents, but makes them less attractive as neighbours for others, thereby partially internalising the externalities the new connection has generated.
Pitfalls of Information Spillovers in Persuasion
(with T. Kerman)
Abstract:
We study a multiple-receiver Bayesian persuasion model in which the sender wants to achieve an outcome and commits to an experiment which sends correlated messages to homogeneous receivers. Receivers are connected in a network and can perfectly observe their immediate neighbors' messages. After updating their beliefs, receivers choose an action to match the true state of the world. Surprisingly, the sender's gain from persuasion does not change monotonically with network density. We characterize a class of networks in which increased communication among the receivers is strictly better for the sender and hence strictly worse for the receivers.
(Different versions of some results in this paper have previously appeared under the title Persuading Communicating Voters, which received Best Paper Award - Gold position at GamesNet Young Scholars' Competition; see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFqe2F931LE - prepared for TARK XVIII)
Directed Reciprocity Subverts Altruism in Highly Adaptive Populations
(with J.-J. Herings and R. Peeters)
Abstract:
Directed reciprocity is generally considered to be a powerful driver for cooperation. Using extensive simulations within an established stylized framework, we test the strength of this relationship. We confirm that directed reciprocity boosts cooperation, but only in the case of relatively inert populations. For highly adaptive populations we find the opposite: directed reciprocity impedes cooperation.
Dynamic vs. Planned Obsolescence (with Vyacheslav Arbuzov and Toygar T. Kerman)
(Available upon request)
Work in progress:
Partition and Persuade (with Dinko Dimitrov and Toygar T. Kerman)
Network formation by local relative contribution (with Noémie Cabau)
Invariance of Networks in Bayesian Persuasion (with Toygar T. Kerman)