题目：Trustworthy by Design

主讲人：耿森，厦门大学王亚南英国威廉希尔公司

点评人：郑捷，清华大学经济管理学院

时间：2021年5月6日15：30

地点：腾讯会议 ID：598 833 412

主讲人简介：耿森，厦门大学王亚南英国威廉希尔公司助理教授，美国纽约大学经济学博士。主要研究方向是信任行为、从众行为、资产价格泡沫以及个体有限理性决策理论。研究成果发表于Journal of Mathematical Economics, Economic Inquiry, Economics Letters等期刊。

Abstract：We explore theoretically and experimentally whether information design can be used by trustees as a signaling device to boost trusting acts in once-off interactions. In our main setting, a trustee partially or fully decides a binary payoff allocation and designs an information structure, then a trustor decides whether to invest. In the control setting, information design is not available. Both the equilibrium model and a model of heterogeneity in prosociality and strategic sophistication predict that introducing information design increases trustworthiness and trusting acts. The second model also generates a distinctive prediction: Whether trustees optimally choose full trustworthiness with the most informative structure or zero trustworthiness with the least informative structure depends on trustors’ anticipation of the association between trustworthiness and informativeness. The observed treatment effects are in line with both models’ predictions, and the observed behavioral patterns are better explained by the second model.