Do elementary statistics or equilibrium theory deliver any insight regarding how we should argue in debates? We provide an answer in a model in which each discussant wants to convince the audience that a specific state holds. If the discussants' payoffs in the audience's posterior are concave...

Do elementary statistics or equilibrium theory deliver any rules of thumb regarding how we should argue in debates? We suggest a framework for normative analysis of debates. In our framework, each discussant wants the audience to believe that the actual state coincides with the discussant's...

Even though people routinely ask experts for advice, they often have private information as well. I study strategic communication when both the expert and the decision maker have private information. In one-way communication, non-monotone equilibria may arise (i.e., the expert conveys whether...