My primary area of research lies in microeconomic theory, specifically information economics, with applications to political economy and industrial organization. In my job market paper, I study persuasion with verifiable information and show how targeted advertising can be an instrument of swinging elections.

Job Market Paper

Dec 2020

1. Persuasion with Verifiable Information Titova, Maria job market paper, 2020 Abstract Paper Slides

   This paper studies persuasion with verifiable information. An informed sender with state-independent preferences sends private verifiable messages to multiple receivers attempting to convince them to approve a proposal. I find that every equilibrium is outcome equivalent to a direct equilibrium, in which the sender tells each receiver what to do, and receivers obediently follow their recommendations. This allows me to characterize the full equilibrium set. The sender-worst equilibrium outcome is one in which information unravels, and receivers act as if under complete information. The sender-preferred equilibrium outcome is the commitment outcome of the Bayesian persuasion game. In the leading application, I study targeted advertising in elections and show that by communicating with voters privately, a challenger may win elections that are unwinnable with public messages. As the electorate becomes more polarized, the challenger can swing unwinnable elections with a higher probability.

Working Papers

Nov 2019

1. Collaborative Search for a Public Good Titova, Maria working paper, 2019 Abstract Paper Slides

   This paper studies a model of costly sequential search among risky alternatives performed by a group of agents. The learning process stops and the best uncovered option is implemented when the agents unanimously agree to stop, or when all the projects have been researched. Both the implemented project and all the information gathered during the search process are public goods. I show that the equilibrium path implements the same project based on the same information, gathered in the same order as the social planner. At the same time, due to free-riding, search in teams does lead to a delay at each stage of the learning process, the size of which grows with search costs. Consequently, the team manager prefers to delegate search to an individual agent, while every agent prefers searching with a partner, since in the latter case she collects the same reward, but only pays the search cost half the time.

Oct 2019

1. Targeted Advertising in Elections Titova, Maria working paper, 2019 Abstract

   This paper studies how a politician who challenges the status quo optimally advertises his private policy position to the electorate via verifiable messages. Each voter has an ideal position on a finite number of issues and expressively votes for the candidate closest to it. Some elections are unwinnable when the challenger advertises publicly because the pivotal voters are located on the opposite sides of the status quo. Our main result states that by targeting, the challenger can swing any election that is unwinnable under public disclosure, but only if his position is moderately close to the status quo. That is inefficient because voters regret their choices with a positive probability. As the electorate of unwinnable elections becomes more polarized (which happens when voters move away from the status quo in the opposite directions), the challenger’s odds of swinging elections rise, making the voters regret their choices more often.

Publications

2018

1. Shopping Malls, Platforms and Consumer Search Parakhonyak, Alexei, and Titova, Maria International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2018 Abstract Paper Slides

   We consider a model of a market for differentiated goods in which firms are located in marketplaces e.g., shopping malls or platforms. There are search frictions between marketplaces, but not within. Marketplaces differ in size. We show that an equilibrium in which consumers start their search at the largest marketplace and continue in the descending order of size, always exists. Despite charging lower prices, firms in larger marketplaces earn higher profits. Under free entry, all firms cluster in one marketplace provided that search frictions are large enough. If a marketplace determines the price of entry, then the equilibrium marketplace size is a single-peaked function of search costs and is decreasing for most of the search cost range.