TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kamenica,Emir
AU  - Gentzkow,Matthew
TI  - Bayesian Persuasion
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15540
PY  - 2009
Y2  - November 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15540
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15540.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Emir Kamenica
University of Chicago
Booth School of Business
5807 S. Woodlawn Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773.834.8690
E-Mail: emir.kamenica@chicagobooth.edu

Matthew Gentzkow
University of Chicago
Booth School of Business
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/834-2177
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: gentzkow@chicagobooth.edu
AB  - When is it possible for one person to persuade another to change her action? We take a mechanism design approach to this question. Taking preferences and initial beliefs as given, we introduce the notion of a persuasion mechanism: a game between Sender and Receiver defined by an information structure and a message technology. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a persuasion mechanism that strictly benefits Sender. We characterize the optimal mechanism. Finally, we analyze several examples that illustrate the applicability of our results.
ER  -