Two Styles of Communication

Résumé

Dewatripont and Tirole built an economic model about costly interpersonal communication (2005). In this model, a sender tries to persuade a receiver to accept a project. I extend it in 4 separate ways: 1) agents have social preferences; 2) the sender is uncertain about the receiver's social preferences; 3) the sender may choose the kind of arguments he communicates; 4) both agents are uncertain about their revenue attached to the project. I show that for such a general setup, there are two types of communication diff ering in their objective. On the one hand, the receiver may communicate to get a high quality project: he accepts the project if and only if he learns that it is of high quality. The receiver's communication objective is to increase his probability of earning the revenue of a high quality project. On the other hand, the receiver may communicate in order to avoid getting a low quality project: he accepts the project unless he learns that it is of low quality. The receiver's communication objective is to decrease his probability of earning the revenue of a low quality project.