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Essays On Delegation And Voter Preferences, Cory Simpkins

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Chapter 1 examines delegation and communication as strategies in coordination games with uncertainty and social preferences. I construct a model where other-regarding partners attempt to coordinate over a binary choice with privately known utilities. Players can choose to either communicate by signaling their preferences or delegate the choice entirely to their partner. I characterize equilibrium behavior under various assumptions on information transmission and coordination risk. If coordination is risky, there is a type of "first mover advantage" where the first player to communicate her own-preference guarantees her ideal outcome when communication is honest revelation. When preference signals are cheap talk, …