Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

12-2022

Abstract

We study a dynamic stopping game between a principal and an agent. The agent is privately informed about his type. The principal learns about the agent’s type from a noisy performance measure, which can be manipulated by the agent via a costly and hidden action. We fully characterize the unique Markov equilibrium of this game. We find that terminations/ market crashes are often preceded by a spike in (expected) performance. Our model also predicts that, due to endogenous signal manipulation, too much transparency can inhibit learning. As the players get arbitrarily patient, the principal elicits no useful information from the observed signal.

Keywords

Asymmetric information, learning, signal manipulation, venture capital

Discipline

Finance | Finance and Financial Management

Research Areas

Finance

Publication

American Economic Review

Volume

112

Issue

12

First Page

3995

Last Page

4040

ISSN

0002-8282

Identifier

10.1257/aer.20211158

Publisher

American Economic Association

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20211158

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