Journal of Political Economy Vol. 113 No. 6 2005
Modes of Communication
Abstract
The paper develops a theory of costly communication in which the sender’s and receiver’s motivations and abilities endogenously determine the communication mode and the transfer of knowledge. Communication is modeled as a problem of moral hazard in teams, in which the sender and receiver select persuasion and message elaboration efforts. The model is shown to provide a rich set of insights concerning (i) the impact of incentive alignment on communication strategies, (ii) the relative influence and the complementarity/substitutability between issue‐relevant communication and cues (information that relates to the credibility of the sender rather than to the issue at stake), and (iii) the path dependency of communication.
- DOI
- 10.1086/497999
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1217-1238
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref