Title：Fickle for Survival: Bayesian Persuasion by a Strategic Regime
Presenter:Mofei Zhao
Time: 11.9 12:00-14:00
Lcation：A1028
Abstract：
We study a regime change model where many citizens, who are imperfectly informed about the regime's strength, decide whether to participate in a revolt. The regime can commit to a strength-dependent information release policy of either truthfully announcing its strength or sending mixed messages, in order to maximize its ex-ante probability of survival. The game among citizens has a generically unique equilibrium, given their political stance between loyalist and revolutionist which determines the pattern of coordination. We also explicitly characterize the regime's optimal persuasion scheme. At optimum, the regime's tendency of being honest is higher when the regime is relatively more malicious, but is not necessarily so when it becomes stronger or when more citizens are revolutionists. When political stance is a choice, no citizen will choose to become a revolutionist even if doing so incurs only a small positive cost. In other words, even if under an evil autocratic regime, a little spark of resistance can hardly start a mighty flame of revolution among rational people.
Introduction：
Dr. Mofei Zhao is Assistant Professor of Finance at International School of Economic Management in Capital University of Economics and Business. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from UCLA. His research focuses on the application of economic theory and game theory in industrial organization, public economics, and finance. His paper got published in international refereed journals such as China Economic Review.
