This research explores how information held by experts is conveyed to non-experts. The problem with such information transmission, however, is that the experts have powerful incentives to provide biased information to non-experts. Building on signaling models in game theory, this research looks at two related topics. In the first, the tradeoff between costly and costless signaling, when both types of signals are available, is investigated. In the second topic, given that the non-expert may be skeptical of an expert's advice, the types of information that can strategically be sent by the expert in order to win over the non-expert are investigated. The proposed research is theoretically motivated and relies exclusively on developing formal models of strategic behavior. There are a wide variety of potential applications for this research, including the interactions between lobbyists and legislators or pharmaceutical industries giving evidence to the FDA.
