Abstract:
In models of private Bayesian persuasion with multiple receivers, the sender’s strategic problem is the choice of a joint distribution of signals to the receivers. In general, the sender’s problem can be solved in two stages: For any given marginal distributions of signals to the receivers, choose an optimal joint distribution; given the solution to this problem, choose the marginal distributions optimally. I focus particularly on settings where these two stages of the sender’s problem can be decoupled, that is, where the optimal marginal distribution of signals for each receiver is that which would be optimal in the absence of other receivers, and is hence independent of the way in which the receivers’ actions interact in the sender’s payoff function.