(Noisy) communication |
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Authors: | Bharat N Anand Ron Shachar |
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Institution: | (1) Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA;(2) Present address: Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163, USA;(3) Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel;(4) Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA |
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Abstract: | Communication is central to many settings in marketing and economics. A focal attribute of communication is miscommunication.
We model this key characteristic as a noise in the messages communicated, so that the sender of a message is uncertain about
its perception by the receiver, and then identify the strategic consequences of miscommunication. We study a model where competing
senders (of different types) can invest in improving the precision of the informative but noisy message they send to a receiver,
and find that there exists a separating equilibrium where senders’ types are completely revealed. Thus, although communication
is noisy it delivers perfect results in equilibrium. This result stems from the fact that a sender’s willingness to invest
in improving the precision of their messages can itself serve as a signal. Interestingly, the content of the messages is ignored
by the receiver in such a signaling equilibrium, but plays a central role by shaping her beliefs off the equilibrium path
(and thus, enables separation between the types). This result also illustrates the uniqueness of the signaling model presented
here. Unlike other signaling models, the suggested model does not require that the costs and benefits of the senders will
be correlated with their types to achieve separation. The model’s results have implications for various marketing communication
tools such as advertising and sales forces.
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Keywords: | Information Signaling Communication |
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