Alice Hsiaw Seminar

Speaker

Alice Hsiaw, Brandeis University

Biography

Akice Hsiaw is an Associate Professor from Brandeis International Business School at Brandeis University. Prior to her appointment at Brandeis University, she was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the College of the Holy Cross. She received her PhD in Economics from Princeton University. Her research interests include Behavioral Economics and Applied Microeconomic Theory. 

Event Details

Paper: "Bayesian Doublespeak"

Abstract: We show that misinformation distorts long-run beliefs in "doublespeak" equilibria of a cheap talk game where receivers are uncertain of a state and the sender’s type.  A sender type who prefers receivers take wrong actions sends messages that plausibly come from a good type under a different state. Even after observing infinite messages, receivers disagree about the state and take different ex-post actions. A policymaker who believes that doublespeak would mislead receivers may restrict the sender to finite messages. An option for receivers to fact-check messages does not limit doublespeak, but sender concerns about reputation can.