In an economy of interacting agents with both idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks, we examine how the information structure determines aggregate volatility. We show that the maximal aggregate volatility is attained in a noise free information structure in which the agents confound idiosyncratic...

In an economy of interacting agents with both idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks, we examine how the structure of private information in‡fluences aggregate volatility. The maximal aggregate volatility is attained in a noise free information structure in which the agents confound idiosyncratic...

This paper investigates an extended version of Crawford-Sobel's (1982) communication game in which the principal can control the quality of the expert's information. We prove that the optimal quality of information is always bounded away from the full information and characterize the optimal...

We study the determinants of auditor industry specialization, the impact of specialization on fees and audit quality, and a regulator's optimal choice of audit standards in the presence of specialization. In industries with correlated firm values, a specialist auditor enjoys synergies from...

This paper studies the diffusion of products and behaviour with coordination effects through social networks when agents are myopic best responders. We develop a new network measure, the contagion threshold, that determines when a p-dominant action – an action that is a best response when...

In reality, the organizational structure of information — describing how information is transmitted to its recipients — is as important as its content. In this paper, we introduce families of (indirect) information structures, namely meeting schemes and delegated hierarchies, that capture...

This paper deals with the effects of different modes of communication in a costless information transmission environment with multiple senders. To this aim, we present a theoretical and experimental study of three Cheap Talk games, each having two senders and one receiver. The communication of...

We develop a dynamic framework of strategic information transmission through cheap talk in a social network. Privately informed agents have different preferences about the action to be implemented by each agent and repeatedly communicate with their neighbors in the network. We first characterize...

A decision maker (DM) must choose between two projects or decide on no project. The expected benefits of these projects are correlated. The DM seeks advice from an agent with private information about the projects' benefits. However, the agent's divergent preferences for projects and lack of...