Three essays in cheap talk

The three chapters of my thesis contain a series of studies on cheap talk. First two chapters are co-authored with Saori Chiba.;In Crawford and Sobel (1982), conflicts of interest between the speaker and the listener hurt cheap talk communication between them. However, when there is an action cost incurred by the listener and the listener can select no action, conflicts between players may facilitate communication. The speaker may have an incentive to withhold information so that the listener acts on the speaker's recommendation as frequently as possible. However, as the level of conflict of interest increases, the listener relies less on the speaker who withholds information, and hence the speaker has a greater need to make his advice informative.;In the second chapter, I study a model of communication using cheap talk. A betterinformed speaker directs an action a listener should take. However, the listener may disobey and choose a different action. In our model, the speaker can use interpersonal authority, making disobedience costly to the listener. I show that when the level of conflict of interest is low, authority and cheap talk are complements in communication. The speaker uses authority to send more information to the listener. When the level of conflict of interest is high, authority and cheap talk are substitutes in communication.;In the third chapter, I study the relationship between transparency in a speaker's preferences and the informativeness of cheap talk communication. Crawford and Sobel's (1982) model implies that uncertainty about the speaker's preferences leads the speaker to reveal more information. Nevertheless, the majority of countries have disclosure and transparency rules. I use the model presented in chapter one in which a listener incurs an action cost and can choose not to take any action. In the model, the speaker has an incentive to hide bad news about his preferred action, but transparency encourages the speaker to reveal his information.