Essays in Economic Theory

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three independent essays in microeconomic theory, focusing on aspects of learning in varied economic settings, both single and multi-agent. In chapter 1, I study a discrete-time dynamic bargaining game in which a buyer can choose to learn privately about her value of the good. I assume information generation takes time and is endogenous, and that verifiable disclosure of evidence is possible. These assumptions result in a folk-theorem type of result about the delay. Moreover, near the high-frequency limit, all stationary equilibria feature non-extreme prices and non-extreme payoffs. In chapter 2 (co-authored with Kevin He), we study how a benevolent sender communicates non-instrumental information over time to a Bayesian receiver who experiences news utility and exhibits diminishing sensitivity. We show that one-shot resolution of uncertainty is strictly suboptimal under many commonly used functional forms. We identify additional conditions that imply the sender optimally releases good news in small pieces but bad news in one clump and show how diminishing sensitivity may lead to commitment problems for the sender. In chapter 3 (co-authored with Yi-Hsuan Lin), we consider an agent who privately learns information about a payoff-relevant uncertain state of the world through a sequential experiment. Suppose the analyst observes the joint distribution over chosen action and decision time. We show that such data uniquely identify costs of information in two popular canonical cases. Moreover, we show how an outside observer with access to such data can conduct welfare analysis despite being oblivious of the sequential experiment of the agent.