Alistair Barton (New York University): "Robust Communication"

I study finite-state sender-receiver games with nearly independent preferences. Recent literature shows persuasive communication is possible when sender preferences are public and state-independent. I demonstrate such communication is fragile to perturbations introducing privacy to the sender’s utility, but may become robust under slightly state-dependent perturbations. Developing a novel representation of equilibria as communication graphs, I show equilibria become robust if and only if their communication graph exhibits specific geometries consistent with the sender's state-dependence. I apply this result to show when empathy improves/impedes communication, and when money-burning benefits senders with state-dependent preferences, despite not benefiting senders with state-independent preferences.