When incentive transparency undermines persuasion

Pardo-Figueroa R. · Economics Letters (2026) · DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113263

Resumen

Can revealing how strongly a sender wants to persuade make persuasion less effective? I study a binary-action game in which the sender privately chooses between two noisy information technologies after observing an incentive intensity and an implementation cost. Stronger incentives make the more permissive technology more attractive. Under transparency, the receiver conditions skepticism on motive intensity; under opacity, low-incentive types lend credibility to high-incentive types through pooling. For an open set of parameters, opacity raises approval. At a fixed mean, dispersion magnifies this penalty when types straddle the credibility threshold. Transparency nevertheless raises receiver welfare.