Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/312510 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Citation: 
[Journal:] International Journal of Game Theory [ISSN:] 1432-1270 [Volume:] 53 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Berlin, Heidelberg [Year:] 2023 [Pages:] 43-70
Publisher: 
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
Evidence games study situations where a sender persuades a receiver by selectively disclosing hard evidence about an unknown state of the world. Evidence games often have multiple equilibria. Hart et al. (Am Econ Rev 107:690-713, 2017) propose to focus on truth-leaning equilibria, i.e., perfect Bayesian equilibria where the sender discloses truthfully when indifferent, and the receiver takes off-path disclosure at face value. They show that a truth-leaning equilibrium is an equilibrium of a perturbed game where the sender has an infinitesimal reward for truth-telling. We show that, when the receiver's action space is finite, truth-leaning equilibrium may fail to exist, and it is not equivalent to equilibrium of the perturbed game. To restore existence, we introduce a disturbed game with a small uncertainty about the receiver's payoff. A purifiable truthful equilibrium is the limit of a sequence of truth-leaning equilibria in the disturbed games as the disturbances converge to zero. It exists and features a simple characterization. A truth-leaning equilibrium that is also purifiable truthful is an equilibrium of the perturbed game. Moreover, purifiable truthful equilibria are receiver optimal and give the receiver the same payoff as the optimal deterministic mechanism.
Subjects: 
Hard evidence
Verifiable disclosure
Equilibrium refinement
JEL: 
C72
D82
D83
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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