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Scoring Strategic Agents

Ian Ball

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics2025https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20230275preprint
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.48

Abstract

I introduce a model of predictive scoring. A receiver wants to predict a sender’s quality. An intermediary observes multiple features of the sender and aggregates them into a score. Based on the score, the receiver makes a decision. The sender prefers “higher” decisions, and she can distort each feature at a privately known cost. I characterize the scoring rule that maximizes decision accuracy. This rule underweights some features to deter sender distortion, and overweights other features so that the score is correct on average. The receiver prefers this scoring rule to full disclosure because it mitigates his commitment problem. (JEL C72, D82, D83)

6 citations

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20230275

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@article{ian2025,
  title        = {{Scoring Strategic Agents}},
  author       = {Ian Ball},
  journal      = {American Economic Journal: Microeconomics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20230275},
}

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Evidence weight

0.48

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.44 × 0.4 = 0.18
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.