We study the role of information about the multiplier in a finitely repeated investment game. A high multiplier increases the reputational incentives of a trustee, leading to more repayments. Our perfect Bayesian equilibrium analysis shows that if the trustee is privately informed about the multiplier, both the expected frequency of investments and repayments as well as the expected payoffs of both players are higher compared to a situation where the multiplier is public knowledge. We test this result in a laboratory experiment. The data cannot confirm the predicted welfare dominance of private information about the multiplier. We discuss potential reasons for the deviation between theory and experimental data.

我们研究了有关乘数信息在有限重复投资博弈中的作用。高乘数会增加受托人的声誉激励，从而导致更多的还款。我们完美的贝叶斯均衡分析表明，如果受托人私下了解乘数，则与乘数是公共知识的情况相比，预期的投资和还款频率以及两个参与者的预期收益都更高。我们在实验室实验中测试了此结果。数据无法确认有关乘数的私人信息的预期福利优势。我们讨论了理论和实验数据之间偏差的潜在原因。