Getting the Agent to Wait

TL;DR

This paper explores strategic information disclosure between principals and agents, revealing how patience, priors, and personalization influence the timing, bias, and quality of information revelation.

Contribution

It introduces a model analyzing how patience, priors, and personalization affect disclosure strategies and information quality in principal-agent interactions.

Findings

Impatient agents cause gradual revelation; impatient principals lead to delayed, abrupt disclosure.

Bias alignment influences initial signaling strategies.

Personalized strategies yield higher information quality, while non-personalized strategies enable faster revelation.

Abstract

We examine the strategic interaction between an expert (principal) maximizing engagement and an agent seeking swift information. Our analysis reveals: When priors align, relative patience determines optimal disclosure -- impatient agents induce gradual revelation, while impatient principals cause delayed, abrupt revelation. When priors disagree, catering to the bias often emerges, with the principal initially providing signals aligned with the agent's bias. With private agent beliefs, we observe two phases: one engaging both agents, followed by catering to one type. Comparing personalized and non-personalized strategies, we find faster information revelation in the non-personalized case, but higher quality information in the personalized case.