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Ran Eilat

Publications and source records attributed to Ran Eilat.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Revealed Information

An analyst observes the frequency with which a decision maker (DM) takes actions, but not the frequency conditional on payoff-relevant states. We ask when the analyst can rationalize the DM's choices as if the DM first learns something about the state before acting. We provide a support-function characterization of the triples of utility functions, prior beliefs, and (marginal) distributions over actions such that the DM's action distribution is consistent with information given the DM's prior and utility function. Assumptions on the cardinality of the state space and the utility function allow us to refine this characterization, obtaining a sharp system of finitely many inequalities the utility function, prior, and action distribution must satisfy. We apply our characterization to study comparative statics and to identify conditions under which a single information structure rationalizes choices across multiple decision problems. We characterize the set of distributions over posterior beliefs that are consistent with the DM's choices. We extend our results to settings with a continuum of actions and states assuming the first-order approach applies, and to simple multi-agent settings.

econ.TH

A Note on the Definition of Strategies in Opportunity Hunting Games

In this note, we propose an alternative definition of strategies and histories in opportunity hunting games, as introduced in Eilat, Neeman and Solan (2025). The advantage of the formulation presented here is that it encompasses a broader class of strategies than the inertial strategies analyzed in Eilat, Neeman and Solan (2025), including those that allow for a countably infinite number of inspections within finite time intervals. Although the definitions of histories and strategies in this broader setting are more subtle, we show that the main results continue to hold. This demonstrates that the findings in Eilat, Neeman and Solan (2025) are robust to environments in which players have access to a richer strategy space.

econ.TH

The Core of Bayesian Persuasion

An analyst observes the frequency with which an agent takes actions, but not the frequency with which she takes actions conditional on a payoff relevant state. In this setting, we ask when the analyst can rationalize the agent's choices as the outcome of the agent learning something about the state before taking action. Our characterization marries the obedience approach in information design (Bergemann and Morris, 2016) and the belief approach in Bayesian persuasion (Kamenica and Gentzkow, 2011) relying on a theorem by Strassen (1965) and Hall's marriage theorem. We apply our results to ring-network games and to identify conditions under which a data set is consistent with a public information structure in first-order Bayesian persuasion games.

econ.TH