Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Economics
Advisor
Guillaume Haeringer
Committee Members
Jonathan Conning
Karna Basu
Subject Categories
Economics | Economic Theory | Political Economy
Keywords
Bayesian persuasion, Strategic communication, Private information, Commitment, Delegation, Crisis bargaining.
Abstract
This dissertation consists of three essays on strategic communication under private information and commitment constraints. The first and third chapters study Bayesian persuasion, while the second chapter studies crisis bargaining.
Chapter 1 studies how Bayesian persuasion can be limited without directly constraining the sender’s information structure. I propose an indirect approach in which a regulator publicly commits to a private information structure that precedes the sender’s choice of public information structure. The chapter develops a general framework for sequentially designing the optimal information structure and applies it to a binary-state environment with an exogenous informativeness constraint on the regulator’s private information structure. The analysis shows that, under this constraint, the regulator may maximize the receiver’s expected utility by choosing a feasible information structure that is less informative in the sense of Blackwell.
Chapter 2 develops a multi-period crisis bargaining model between a challenger and a defender, where neither side can commit to attack or concede, and the challenger may continue making demands without commitment to end the game after the defender’s acceptance. The model replaces discounting with offense dominance, the incentive to strike first and gain advantage. I characterize the perfect Bayesian equilibrium and show how costs and first-strike advantages shape equilibrium strategies. I also study salami tactics and counteroffers, and use the model to compare strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity.
Chapter 3 studies a Bayesian persuasion model in which the sender is privately informed before choosing an information structure, and the sender’s bias is endogenously determined through delegation. After observing an imperfect private signal, the sender chooses which delegator to contract with and then selects the corresponding information structure, while the receiver observes neither the sender’s private signal nor her delegation choice. The chapter characterizes the equilibrium structure of the delegated persuasion game and shows how private information affects both the sender’s information design and the action she seeks to induce.
Together, the three chapters show how strategic communication depends on who controls information, what commitment is available, and how private information changes belief formation and equilibrium behavior.
Recommended Citation
Huang, Bohan, "Essays in Strategic Communication" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6752
