<p dir="ltr">This thesis explores various dimensions of strategic communication, cooperation, and information design within economic and organizational contexts. </p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 2 investigates whether the Law Merchant system can enhance cooperation among agents in a repeated interaction setting and how the presence of bribery affects this dynamic. The study finds that the Honest Law Merchant system does not significantly improve cooperation compared to a baseline scenario without such an institution, while the introduction of bribery further diminishes cooperative behavior. These findings suggest that while judicial enforcement mechanisms hold promise for promoting cooperation, their effectiveness can be undermined by corrupt practices. </p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 3 experimentally investigates behavioral spillovers between two social dilemma type games. In our experiments, subjects play Prisoner’s Dilemma game (PD) and Public Goods game (PGG) simultaneously, where the opponents of the two games do not overlap. I vary the level of strategic uncertainty in PD game and test how this affects subject's contributing behavior in PGG, which is held constant across treatments. I find that behavioral spillover exists in our setting and comes in an asymmetric form. When people are in an environment where cooperation is easy to sustain in the PD game, the PGG contributions do not increase much, compared to the baseline treatment when the PGG is played alone. However, when in the setting where cooperation is difficult to sustain in the PD game, PGG contributions decrease significantly.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 4, a joint work with Xinxin Lyu, chapter extends the work from Chapter 3 by exploring the differences in between individuals and teams. The study employs the Individual Evolutionary Learning (IEL) model and additional team experimental treatments. Initial results show that teams exhibit higher cooperation and contribution levels compared to individuals, but these advantages diminish over time, particularly in environments with lower strategic uncertainty. The findings provide insights into group dynamics and the challenges teams face in sustaining cooperation, with significant implications for economic and organizational contexts.</p>

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No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese com ficha - Marcel Ribeiro.pdf: 1182673 bytes, checksum: 983f638fb4441b4f69f72f3ca516c059 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-22 / This dissertation study the implications of strategic uncertainty induced by imperfect common knowledge for macroeconomic models and economic policy. In the first chapter, I evaluate whether central bank’s transparency enhances the effectiveness of monetary policy. I study this question using a New Keynesian model in which firms do not observe the time-varying inflation target or monetary policy shocks. Two informational assumptions are considered: (i) firms observe the interest rate decisions only (standard assumption) and (ii) firms observe the interest rate and an idiosyncratic signal about the inflation target. Under the standard assumption, agents infer output and inflation fluctuations by realizing that other agents are acting exactly like them. That ceases to be true when agents face strategic uncertainty induced by the idiosyncratic signal. One key implication is that, in the case of a monetary contraction, greater transparency improves the inflation-output trade-off only under the second assumption. In the second chapter, for a general class of DSGE models, I show that whenever agents extract information from endogenous variables that depends directly on the underlying unobserved shock, there is a qualitative difference in the signal extraction from those variables under imperfect information and imperfect common knowledge. This difference in learning about unobserved shocks does not vanish even in the limiting case when the variance of the private signal goes to infinity. Intuitively, strategic uncertainty prevents agents from knowing other agents’ decision, despite that those actions are the same in equilibrium. This discontinuity challenges this benchmark assumption by showing the implicitly substantial knowledge about endogenous variables assumed available to agents under imperfect information. The third chapter develops a novel solution method for a general class of DSGE models with imperfect common knowledge. The main contribution is that the method allows for the inclusion of endogenous state variables into the system of linear rational expectations equations under imperfect common knowledge. One key implication is that the endogenous persistence of state variables is the same under full information and imperfect common knowledge. A primer empirical evaluation of the informational frictions suggests that the model under imperfect common knowledge explains better the expectation data but is relatively worse at explaining the macroeconomic aggregates. / Esta tese estuda as implicações da incerteza estratégica induzida pelo conhecimento comum imperfeito para modelos macroeconômicos e política econômica. No primeiro capítulo, avalio se a transparência do banco central aumenta a eficácia da política monetária. Eu estudo essa questão usando um modelo Novo Keynesiano no qual as firmas não observam a meta de inflação variável no tempo e os choques de política monetária. Duas suposições sobre a informação dos agentes são consideradas: (i) as firmas observam apenas as decisões da taxa de juros e (ii) as firmas observam a taxa de juros e um sinal idiossincrático sobre a meta de inflação. Sob a suposição padrão, os agentes inferem flutuações de produto e inflação percebendo que outros agentes estão agindo exatamente como eles. Isso deixa de ser verdade quando os agentes enfrentam a incerteza estratégica induzida pelo sinal idiossincrático. Uma implicação principal é que, no caso de uma contração monetária, maior transparência melhora o trade-off inflação-produto apenas sob a segunda hipótese. No segundo capítulo, para uma classe geral de modelos DSGE, mostro que sempre que os agentes extraem informações de variáveis endógenas que dependem do choque subjacente não observado, as extrações de sinal daquelas variáveis sob informação imperfeita e conhecimento comum imperfeito são diferentes. Essa diferença no aprendizado de choques não observados não desaparece nem no caso limite quando a variação do sinal privado vai para o infinito. Intuitivamente, a incerteza estratégica impede que os agentes conheçam a decisão de outros agentes, apesar de essas ações serem as mesmas em equilíbrio. Essa descontinuidade desafia a suposição padrão, mostrando o conhecimento substancial sobre variáveis endógenas implicitamente assumido disponível para agentes sob informação imperfeita. O terceiro capítulo desenvolve um novo método de solução para uma classe geral de modelos DSGE com conhecimento comum imperfeito. A principal contribuição é que o método permite a inclusão de variáveis de estado endógeno no sistema de equações lineares de expectativas racionais sob conhecimento comum imperfeito. Uma implicação chave é que a persistência endógena de variáveis de estado é a mesma sob informação completa e conhecimento comum imperfeito. Uma avaliação empírica preliminar das fricções informacionais revela que o modelo sob informação imperfeita e dispersa explica melhor os dados de expectativas do que o modelo de informação completa. No entanto, isso ocorre ao custo de ser relativamente pior na explicação dos agregados macroeconômicos.