Yang K. Lu

The Power of Whispers: A Theory of Rumor, Communication, and Revolution

We study the role rumors play in revolutions using a global game model. Agents with diverse private information rationally evaluate the informativeness of rumors about the regime strength. Without communication among agents, wild rumors are discounted and agents are generally less responsive to rumors than to trustworthy news. When agents can exchange views on the informativeness of rumors, a rumor against the regime would coordinate a larger mass of attackers than that without communication. The effect of communication can be so large that rumors can have a greater impact on mobilization than does fully trustworthy information.

Optimal policy with credibility concerns

This paper considers a reputation model of optimal taxation in which the public is unsure about the government type. A long-lived government can be trustworthy (meaning that it commits to its announced tax rate) or opportunistic (meaning that it retains the ability to change its tax rate after announcing it). Unlike in most prior studies, the committed strategy in this model is optimally chosen by the trustworthy type. We show that this change has significant consequences for the equilibrium dynamics. The optimal committed strategy is found to vary with the time preferences of the two government types, the initial reputation of the government, and the elasticity of household production. This formulation explains differences in policy responses across governments in the face of similar credibility problems.