Eduardo Perez-Richet
Professor,
Department of Economics,
Sciences Po
Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Member of the Editorial Board of the Review of Economic Studies
Associate Editor at the American Economic Review
Associate Editor at the Journal of Economic Theory
Fields:
Microeconomic Theory, Game Theory, Information Economics, Political Economics.I have been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for my project Information and Misinformation Economics: Design, Manipulations and Countermeasures (IMEDMC).
Active Working Papers
Score-Based Mechanisms,
Abstract:
We propose a mechanism design framework that incorporates both soft information, which can be freely manipulated,
and semi-hard information, which entails a cost for falsification. The framework captures various contexts such
as school choice, public housing, organ transplant and manipulations of classification algorithms. We first
provide a canonical class of mechanisms for these settings. The key idea is to treat the submission of hard
information as an observable and payoff-relevant action and the contractible part of the mechanism as a mapping
from submitted scores to a distribution over decisions (a score-based decision rule). Each type report triggers
a distribution over score submission requests and a distribution over decision rules. We provide conditions under
which score-based mechanisms are without loss of generality. In other words, situations under which the agent does
not make any type reports and decides without a mediator what score to submit in a score-based decision rule. We
proceed to characterize optimal approval mechanisms in the presence of manipulable hard information. In several
leading settings optimal mechanisms are score-based (and thus do not rely on soft information) and involve costly
screening. The solution methodology we employ is suitable both for concave cost functions and quadratic costs and
is applicable to a wide range of contexts in economics and in computer science.
This version: March 2024
with
Vasiliki Skreta,
2024.
[PDF]
Fraud-proof Non-market Allocation Mechanisms,
Abstract:
We study the optimal design of fraud-proof allocation mechanisms without transfers. An agent's
eligibility relies on a score reflecting social value, but gaming generates misallocations,
mistrust, unfairness and other negative externalities. We characterize optimal allocation
rules that are immune to gaming under two classes of gaming technologies. We examine the impact
of demographic changes on allocations within and across identifiable groups, while accounting
for resource and quota constraints. Fraud-proof allocation rules enhance fairness and trust in
allocation systems at the cost of some allocative efficiency.
This version: March 2024
with
Vasiliki Skreta,
2024.
[PDF]
Non-Market Allocation Mechanisms: Optimal Design and Investment Incentives,
Abstract:
We study how to optimally design mechanisms for allocating scarce resources, accounting for agents’
investment incentives. A principal wishes to allocate a resource of homogeneous quality, such as seats
in a university, to a heterogeneous population of agents. She commits ex-ante to a possibly random
allocation rule that depends on a one-dimensional characteristic of the agents that she intrinsically
values, but does not have access to monetary transfers. Agents have a strict preference to be allocated
the resource and may undertake a costly investment to improve their characteristic before it is
revealed to the principal. We show that while random allocation rules have the effect of encouraging
investment, especially at the top of the characteristic distribution, deterministic pass-fail
allocation rules, such as exams with a pass grade, prove to be optimal.
This version: November 2022
with
Victor Augias,
2022.
[PDF]
Communication via Third Parties,
Abstract:
A principal designs an information structure and chooses transfers to an agent that are contingent on
the action of a receiver. The principal faces a trade-off between, on the one hand, designing an
information structure maximizing non-monetary payoffs, and on the other hand, minimizing the information rent that must be
conceded to the agent in order to implement the information structure which the principal designed. We
examine how this trade-off shapes communication. Our model can be applied to study the relationship
between, e.g.: political organizations and the public relations companies that campaign on their behalf,
firms and the companies marketing their products, consultancies and the analysts they employ.
This version: March 2021
with
Jacopo Bizzotto
and
Adrien Vigier,
2021.
[PDF]
Information Design with Agency,
Abstract:
We consider a general information design problem in which the task of running a procedure generating
information for a continuation game is performed by an agent. A moral hazard problem therefore emerges
in which the principal faces a trade-off between generating information that is persuasive in the
continuation game, and efficiently incentivizing the agent to comply with the procedure designed.
Standard concavification techniques do not apply in this environment. We provide a general methodology
to tackle such problems, and examine the way in which moral hazard affects the optimal procedure of the
principal.
This version: February 2020
with
Jacopo Bizzotto
and
Adrien Vigier,
2020.
[PDF]
Published or Accepted Papers
Test Design under Falsification,
Abstract:
We study the optimal design of tests with manipulable inputs. Tests take a unidimensional state of the
world as input, and output an informative signal to guide a receiver's approve or reject decision. The
receiver wishes to only approve states that comply with her baseline standard. An agent with a
preference for approval can covertly falsify the state of the world at a cost. We characterize
receiver-optimal tests and show they rely on productive falsification by compliant states. They work by
setting a more stringent operational standard, and granting noncompliant states a positive approval
probability to deter them from falsifying to the standard. We also study how falsification-detection
technologies improve optimal tests. They allow the designer to build an implicit cost of falsification
into the test, in the form of signal devaluations. Exploiting this channel requires enriching the
signal space.
This version: November 2021
with
Vasiliki Skreta,
Econometrica,
2022, 90, 3, 1109-1142.
[PDF]
[Appendix]
Altruism and Risk Sharing in Networks,
Abstract:
We provide the first analysis of the risk sharing implications of altruism networks. Agents are
embedded in a fixed network and care about each other. We explore whether altruistic transfers help
smooth consumption and how this depends on the shape of the network. We find that altruism networks
have a first-order impact on risk. Altruistic transfers generate efficient insurance when the network
of perfect altruistic ties is strongly connected. We uncover two specific empirical implications of
altruism networks. First, bridges can generate good overall risk sharing and, more generally, the
quality of informal insurance depends on the average path length of the network. Second, large shocks
are well-insured by connected altruism networks. By contrast, large shocks tend to be badly insured in
models of informal insurance with frictions. We characterize what happens for shocks that leave the
structure of giving relationships unchanged. We further explore the relationship between consumption
variance and centrality, correlation in consumption streams across agents and the impact of adding links.
This version: May 2020
with
Renaud Bourlès
and
Yann Bramoullé,
Journal of the European Economic Association,
2021, 19, 3.
[PDF]
Evidence Reading Mechanisms,
Abstract:
We study implementation with privately informed agents who can produce evidence. We characterize social
choice functions that are implementable by mechanisms that are robust to the designer's commitment
power, and simply apply the social choice function to a reading of the evidence. In this class of
mechanisms, our results provide conditions on the evidence structure such that (i) a function that is
implementable with transfers is also implementable with evidence but no transfer, (ii) under private
value, the efficient allocation is implementable with budget balanced and individually rational
transfers, and (iii) in single-object auction and bilateral trade environments with interdependent
values, the efficient allocation is implementable with budget balanced and individually rational
transfers.
This version: December 2018
with
Frederic Koessler,
Social Choice and Welfare,
2019, 52, 194, 1-23.
(formerly circulated under the title: Evidence Based Mechanisms)
[PDF]
Communication with Evidence in the Lab,
Abstract:
We study a class of sender-receiver disclosure games in the lab. Our experiment relies on a graphical
representation of sender's incentives in these games, and permits partial disclosure. We use local and
global properties of the incentive graph to explain behavior and performance of players across different
games. Sender types whose interests are aligned with those of the receiver fully disclose, while other
types use vague messages. Receivers take the evidence disclosed by senders into account, and perform
better in games with an acyclic graph. Senders perform better in games with a cyclic graph. The data is
largely consistent with a non-equilibrium model of strategic thinking based on the iterated elimination
of obviously dominated strategies.
This version: September 2018
with
Jeanne Hagenbach,
Games and Economic Behavior,
2018, 112, 139-165.
[PDF]
Altruism in Networks,
Abstract:
We provide the first analysis of altruism in networks. Agents are embedded in a fixed network and care
about the well-being of their network neighbors. Depending on incomes, they may provide financial
support to their poorer friends. We study the Nash equilibria of the resulting game of transfers. We
show that equilibria maximize a concave potential function. We establish existence, uniqueness of
equilibrium consumption and generic uniqueness of equilibrium transfers. We characterize the geometry
of the network of transfers and highlight the key role played by transfer intermediaries. We then study
comparative statics. A positive income shock to an individual benefits all. For small changes in incomes,
agents in a component of the network of transfers act as if they were organized in an income-pooling
community. A decrease in income inequality or expansion of the altruistic network may increase
consumption inequality.
This version: November 2016
with
Renaud Bourlès
and
Yann Bramoullé,
Econometrica,
2017, 85, 2, 675-689.
[PDF]
[Appendix]
Interim Bayesian Persuasion: First Steps,
Abstract:
This paper makes a first attempt at building a theory of interim Bayesian persuasion. I work in a
minimalist model where a low or high type sender seeks validation from a receiver who is willing to
validate high types exclusively. After learning her type, the sender chooses a complete conditional
information structure for the receiver from a possibly restricted feasible set. I suggest a solution to
this game that takes into account the signaling potential of the sender's choice.
Last version: January 2014
American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings,
2014, 104, 5.
[PDF]
Certifiable Pre-Play Communication: Full Disclosure,
Abstract:
This article asks when communication with certifiable information leads to complete information
revelation. We consider Bayesian games augmented by a pre-play communication phase in which
announcements are made publicly. We first characterize the augmented games in which there exists a
fully revealing sequential equilibrium with extremal beliefs (i.e., any deviation is attributed to a
single type of the deviator). Next, we define a class of games for which existence of a fully revealing
equilibrium is equivalent to a richness property of the evidence structure. This characterization
enables us to provide different sets of sufficient conditions for full information disclosure that
encompass and extend all known results in the literature, and are easily applicable. We use these
conditions to obtain new insights in persuasion games with multidimensional types, games with strategic
complementarities, and voting with deliberation.
Last version: December 2013
with
Jeanne Hagenbach
and
Frederic Koessler,
Econometrica,
2014, 82, 3, 1093-1131.
[PDF]
[Appendix]
Choosing Choices: Agenda Selection with Uncertain Issues,
Abstract:
We study selection rules: voting procedures used by committees to choose whether to place an
issue on their agenda. At the selection stage of the model, committee members are uncertain
about their final preferences. They only have some private information about these preferences. We show
that voters become more conservative when the selection rule itself becomes more conservative.
The decision rule has the opposite effect. We compare these voting procedures to the designation
of an agenda setter among the committee, and to a utilitarian social planner with all the ex interim
private information.
Last version: July 2012.
with
Raphael Godefroy,
Econometrica,
2013, 81, 1, 221-253.
[PDF]
A Note on the Tight Simplification of Mechanisms,
Abstract:
Paul Milgrom (2010) proposes to simplify mechanisms by restricting their message space. When doing so,
it is important not to create new equilibria. A weakly tight simplification is one that does not create
new Nash equilibria, a tight simplification is one that does not create new ε-Nash equilibria.
This note offers characterizations of tightness. When the preference domain is that of continuous
utility functions on the outcome space, the two notions are equivalent, and are also equivalent to the
outcome closure property of Milgrom (2008).
Last version: August 2010
Economics Letters,
2011.
[PDF]
Inactive Working Papers
Complicating to Persuade?,
Abstract:
This paper addresses a common criticism of certification processes: that they simultaneously generate
excessive complexity, insufficient scrutiny and high rates of undue validation. We build a model of
persuasion in which low and high types pool on their choice of complexity. A natural criterion based on
forward induction selects the high-type optimal pooling equilibrium.When the receiver prefers rejection
ex ante, the sender simplifies her report. When the receiver prefers validation ex ante, however, more
complexity makes the receiver less selective, and we provide sufficient conditions that lead to
complexity inflation in equilibrium.
This version: February 2012
with Delphine Prady, 2012.
[PDF]
Competing with Equivocal Information,
Abstract:
This paper studies strategic disclosure between multiple senders and a single receiver. The senders are
competing for prizes awarded by the receiver. They decide whether to disclose a piece of information
that is both verifiable and equivocal (it can influence the receiver both ways). Then the standard
unraveling argument breaks down: if the commonly known probability that her information is favorable is
sufficiently high, a single sender never discloses. Competition restores full disclosure only if some of
the senders are sufficiently unlikely to have favorable information. When the senders are uncertain
about each other's strength, however, all symmetric equilibria approach full disclosure as the number of
candidates increases.
This version: July 2012
2012.
[PDF]