A study in the pragmatics of persuasion: a game theoretical approach

A speaker wishes to persuade a listener to take a certain action. The conditions under which the request is justified, from the listener’s point of view, depend on the state of the world, which is known only to the speaker. Each state is characterized by a set of statements from which the speaker chooses. A persuasion rule specifies which statements the listener finds persuasive. We study persuasion rules that maximize the probability that the listener accepts the request if and only if it is justified, given that the speaker maximizes the probability that his request is accepted. We prove that there always exists a persuasion rule involving no randomization and that all optimal persuasion rules are ex-post optimal. We relate our analysis to the field of pragmatics.Persuasion, mechanism design, hard evidence, pragmatics

The wisdom of the crowd when acquiring information is costly

We consider a sequential investment process that is characteristic of crowdfunding platforms, among other contexts. Investors wish to avoid the cost of information acquisition and thus prefer to rely on information acquired by previous investors. This may lead to a phenomenon similar to an information cascade. We characterize the optimal policy that balances between the incentive to acquire information and the optimal investment decision. The policy is based on time-varying transparency levels such that it may be worthwhile to conceal some information in some periods

The Inverse U-shaped religion–health connection among Israeli Jews

A growing body of evidence indicates an association between religion and health. However, few have studied the connection between the extent of an individual's religiosity and his health. Analysis of the 2004 Israel National Health Survey was performed. Religiosity was self-identified using five continuous categories, distinctive to Israeli Jews. Bivariate and multivariate analyses examined the relationship between the extent of Religious commitment and several health outcomes. The relationship took the shape of an inverse U function: Israeli Jews in the middle religiously have the worst physical and mental health status on both unadjusted and adjusted bases. Israeli Jews exhibit a non-trivial connection between religiosity and health whereby the most Secular and the most Religious individuals seem to be healthier than individuals in between

Stylish Risk-Limiting Audits in Practice

Risk-limiting audits (RLAs) can use information about which ballot cards contain which contests (card-style data, CSD) to ensure that each contest receives adequate scrutiny, without examining more cards than necessary. RLAs using CSD in this way can be substantially more efficient than RLAs that sample indiscriminately from all cast cards. We describe an open-source Python implementation of RLAs using CSD for the Hart InterCivic Verity voting system and the Dominion Democracy Suite(R) voting system. The software is demonstrated using all 181 contests in the 2020 general election and all 214 contests in the 2022 general election in Orange County, CA, USA, the fifth-largest election jurisdiction in the U.S., with over 1.8 million active voters. (Orange County uses the Hart Verity system.) To audit the 181 contests in 2020 to a risk limit of 5% without using CSD would have required a complete hand tally of all 3,094,308 cast ballot cards. With CSD, the estimated sample size is about 20,100 cards, 0.65% of the cards cast--including one tied contest that required a complete hand count. To audit the 214 contests in 2022 to a risk limit of 5% without using CSD would have required a complete hand tally of all 1,989,416 cast cards. With CSD, the estimated sample size is about 62,250 ballots, 3.1% of cards cast--including three contests with margins below 0.1% and 9 with margins below 0.5%

Managerial incentives and financial signaling in product market competition

This paper demonstrates how management compensation schemes can serve as an inexpensive and sometimes even free signaling mechanism. In the particular example studied here it is shown how a contract offered to the manager of a monopolistic firm may induce him to take some actions that will credibly signal the firm's marginal cost and will deter entry if the firm is `sufficiently' efficient. This signaling mechanism is not costly to the monopolist and therefore, it may prefer this mechanism to the costlier `limit pricing' one.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28542/1/0000340.pd

What Motives Should Guide Referees? On The Design of Mechanisms to Elicit Opinions

Public motive, personal motive, implementation, eliciting opinions

The Scope for Collusive Behavior Among Debtor Countries

We study the question of whether there exist strategies whereby countries are able to sustain a cartel or collusive behavior when bargaining with a bank over the amount of debt to be repaid. We show that despite the existence of economies to scale in bargaining--if commitment were possible the countries would benefit from joint bargaining--a debtors' cartel will not emerge in equilibrium (in the absence of credible commitment mechanisms). A unique subgame-perfect equilibrium exists in which the bank is effectively able to isolate each country and extract from each the same payoff that it would obtain in the absence of economies to scale. Consequently, a country would be better off if another country declared default. We also show that if two countries of unequal size are bargaining with a bank, in equilibrium a decrease in the size of the smaller country implies a greater payoff to the large country although the payoff to the small country is invariant.

Measuring Adverse Selection in Managed Health Care

Health plans paid by capitation have an incentive to distort the quality of services they offer to attract profitable and to deter unprofitable enrollees. We characterize plans' rationing as imposing a show that the profit maximizing shadow price depends on the dispersion in health costs, how well individuals forecast their health costs, the correlation between use in different illness categories, and the risk adjustment system used for payment. We further show how these factors can be combined in an empirically implementable index that can be used to identify the services that will be most distorted in competition among managed care plans. A simple welfare measure is developed to quantify the distortion caused by selection incentives. We illustrate the application of our ideas with a Medicaid data set, and conduct policy analyses of risk adjustment and other options for dealing with adverse selection.

Presentation, diagnosis and clinical course of the spectrum of progressive-fibrosing interstitial lung diseases

Although these conditions are rare, a proportion of patients with interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) may develop a progressive-fibrosing phenotype. Progressive fibrosis is associated with worsening respiratory symptoms, lung function decline, limited response to immunomodulatory therapies, decreased quality of life and, potentially, early death. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis may be regarded as a model for other progressive-fibrosing ILDs. Here we focus on other ILDs that may present a progressive-fibrosing phenotype, namely idiopathic nonspecific interstitial pneumonia, unclassifiable idiopathic interstitial pneumonia, connective tissue disease-associated ILDs (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis-related ILD), fibrotic chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis, fibrotic chronic sarcoidosis and ILDs related to other occupational exposures. Differential diagnosis of these ILDs can be challenging, and requires detailed consideration of clinical, radiological and histopathological features. Accurate and early diagnosis is crucial to ensure that patients are treated optimally