Dworczak, Piotr and Smolin, AlexIdRef (2026) Robust Trust. TSE Working Paper, n. 26-1709, Toulouse

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Abstract

An agent chooses an action using her private information combined with recommendations from an informed but potentially misaligned adviser. With a known alignment probability, the adviser reports his signal truthfully; with remaining probability, the adviser can send an arbitrary message. We characterize the decision rule that maximizes the agent’s worst-case expected payoff. Every optimal rule admits a trust region representation in belief space: advice is taken at face value when it induces a posterior within the trust region; otherwise, the agent acts as if the posterior were on the trust region’s boundary. We derive thresholds on the alignment probability above which the adviser’s presence strictly benefits the agent and fully characterize the solution in binary-state as well as binary-action environments.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Language: English
Date: February 2026
Place of Publication: Toulouse
Uncontrolled Keywords: information design, misalignment, human-AI interactions
JEL Classification: C72 - Noncooperative Games
D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
D83 - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: TSE-R (Toulouse)
Institution: Université Toulouse 1 Capitole
Ecole doctorale: Toulouse School of Economics (Toulouse)
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 11 Feb 2026 10:29
Last Modified: 12 Feb 2026 07:40
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:131429
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/52047
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