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American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics

ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)

Scoring Strategic Agents

  • Ian Ball
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 17, no. 1, February 2025
(pp. 97–129)
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Abstract

I introduce a model of predictive scoring. A receiver wants to predict a sender's quality. An intermediary observes multiple features of the sender and aggregates them into a score. Based on the score, the receiver makes a decision. The sender prefers "higher" decisions, and she can distort each feature at a privately known cost. I characterize the scoring rule that maximizes decision accuracy. This rule underweights some features to deter sender distortion, and overweights other features so that the score is correct on average. The receiver prefers this scoring rule to full disclosure because it mitigates his commitment problem.

Citation

Ball, Ian. 2025. "Scoring Strategic Agents." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 17 (1): 97–129. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20230275

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C72 Noncooperative Games
  • D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
  • D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
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