Sender-receiver games with cooperation (Q1748370)

This work is a contribution to the field of strategic information transmission models. An example of such situations is one in which there is a financial expert who acts as a sender and an investor who acts as a receiver [\textit{R. Benabou} and \textit{G. Laroque}, Q. J. Econ. 107, No. 3, 921--958 (1992; Zbl 0825.90256)]. More related literature is [\textit{F. Forges}, Q. J. Econ. 105, No. 2, 375--398 (1990; Zbl 0695.90018)], among others. In the present article, it is considered a generalized game of sender-receiver in which both sender and receiver must make decisions simultaneously. In particular, the sender also has to choose an action, although this action is only payoff-relevant for himself. They analize the so-called cooperate and talk equilibria (briefly, CTE). In this equilibrium, the sender can commit to delegate his decision to the receiver, before sending his message. An axiomatic characterization of CTE is proposed using the properties of incentive compatibility, optimality for the uninformed player and individual rationality for the informed player. These properties have analogues in the field of mechanism design (cf. [\textit{R. B. Myerson}, Game theory: analysis of conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1991; Zbl 0729.90092)]). The interesting consequence of such an axiomatic characterization is that the receiver always benefits from the cooperation of the sender. With regard to the existence of CTE, this is not guaranteed in general, but this existence is assured under the assumption that the receiver has a ``uniform punishment decision'' (UPD). To introduce this last notion, it was necessary to define another concept of individual rationality for the informed player. An example shows that the existence of CTE may not be satisfied in the absence of UPD. The proof of the result of existence is based on techniques developed to study the existence of equilibria in repeated games with incomplete information, in [\textit{R. S. Simon} et al., Isr. J. Math. 92, No. 1--3, 1--21 (1995; Zbl 0843.90143)], among others. Finally, two other variants of the studied model are considered.