Theme：Know Thy Enemy: Information Acquisition in Contests

Lecturer：Zhuoqiong Chen, School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen)

Time：2022.05.12 12:30--14:00

Site：Tecent meeting 735-157-030

  Abstract：

  This paper studies the incentives for and the consequences of information acquisition about opponents in contests with independent private values. Two players can spy on each other by privately acquiring a costly, noisy, and private signal about the opponent's value by choosing the signal's accuracy before the contest. Given that they spy on each other, we characterize the unique monotonic equilibrium in the contest whenever it exists. The players may not have the incentives to acquire information when they do not observe each other's accuracies of signals, and always have the incentives when they do observe the accuracies. Acquiring information about opponents may lead to allocative inefficiency but always benefits both players even accounting for its costs.

 Introduction to the lecturer：

 Ms. Zhuoqiong Chen is an assistant professor at the School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen). Ms. Chen graduated from the London School of Economics and received her Master's degree in economics from Peking University and her master's degree in finance from the University of Hong Kong. His research interest covers game theory, behavioral Economics and digital Economics. His research interest has been published in European Economic Review, Journal of Mathematical Economics, etc.