Communication with Forgetful Liars

Pre-print, Working paper: I consider multi-round cheap talk communication environments in which, after a lie, the informed party has no memory of the content of the lie. I characterize the equilibria with forgetful liars in such settings assuming that a liar.s expectation about his past lie coincides with the equilibrium distribution of lies aggregated over all possible realizations of the states. The approach is used to shed light on when the full truth is almost surely elicited, when multiple lies can arise in equilibrium, and when inconsistencies trigger harmful consequences.

Author(s)

Philippe Jehiel

Date of publication
  • 2019
Keywords
  • Forgetful liars
  • Lie detection
  • Analogy-based expectations
  • Cheap talk
Internal reference
  • PSE Working Papers n°2019-37
Version
  • 1