Strategic Successive Refinement Coding for Bayesian Persuasion with Two Decoders

Abstract

We study the multi-user Bayesian persuasion game between one encoder and two decoders, where the first decoder is better informed than the second decoder. We consider two perfect links, one to the first decoder only, and the other to both decoders. We consider that the encoder and both decoders are endowed with distinct and arbitrary distortion functions. We investigate the strategic source coding problem in which the encoder commits to an encoding while the decoders select the sequences of symbols that minimize their respective distortion functions. We characterize the optimal encoder distortion value by considering successive refinement coding with respect to a specific probability distribution which involves two auxiliary random variables, and captures the incentives constraints of both decoders.