Bayesian Persuasion with Selective Disclosure

2026-01-09

AI Summary

This study investigates how a sender with private experimentation capabilities and the ability to selectively disclose results influences a receiver’s decision-making, with particular attention to the efficiency of information transmission under uncertainty about the sender’s type. The model assumes the sender first publicly commits to an experiment and then, based on their private type, conducts an additional experiment and strategically discloses its outcome. Using tools from Bayesian persuasion and information design, the paper demonstrates that when the receiver is highly uncertain about the sender’s type and the sender has incentives to selectively disclose after observing the optimal experiment’s outcome, no equilibrium can achieve the payoff attainable under full commitment. Conversely, when such conditions do not hold, equilibria exist that attain the full-commitment optimum. This result extends Bayesian persuasion theory by revealing a novel mechanism through which type uncertainty combined with selective disclosure undermines the value of commitment.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Mechanism Design
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Sequential Decision Making
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Psychology-informed user models and recommender systems
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

A sender first publicly commits to an experiment and then can privately run additional experiments and selectively disclose their outcomes to a receiver. The sender has private information about the maximal number of additional experiments they can perform (i.e., their type). We show that the sender cannot attain their commitment payoff in any equilibrium if (i) the receiver is sufficiently uncertain about their type and (ii) the sender could benefit from selective disclosure after conducting their full-commitment optimal experiment. Otherwise, there can be equilibria where the sender obtains their commitment payoff.

Problem

• Bayesian Persuasion
• Selective Disclosure
• Private Information
• Commitment Payoff
• Equilibrium

Innovation

• Bayesian persuasion
• selective disclosure
• private type
• information design
• commitment