【主讲】Jun Zhang (University of Technology Sydney)
【主题】Bayesian Persuasion and Pricing Strategies by Informed Seller
【时间】2017年4月10日 (周一) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼402室
【语言】英文
【摘要】This paper considers the selling problem between a seller (she) and a buyer (he). The buyer's value of the product is uncertain and he relies on the seller to allow him to access further information. Meanwhile, the seller possesses binary unverifiable private information that is correlated to the buyer's value. To sell the product, the seller designs the information disclosure rules through Bayesian persuasion, and pricing strategies by charging a fee for accessing the further information and setting a selling price for buying the product upon learning the further information. Both the information disclosure rules and the pricing strategies can signal the seller's private information. We find that the perfect Bayesian Nash equilibrium that satisfies the intuitive criterion always exists and is unique. In equilibrium, the low type seller adopts no disclosure, charges zero fee, and sets the selling price at the expected value of the product. The high type seller adopts a monotone binary partition disclosure policy with the cutoff just high enough to deter the low type from mimicking, charges zero fee, and sets the selling price at the buyer's expected value of the product conditional on being higher than the cutoff. The signaling concern urges the high type seller to provide more information and charges a higher selling price, which makes him worse off. A regulation on minimal quality can lead to lower social surplus. Finally, when the seller's private information is continuously distributed, similar results hold.
