Expert advice often extends beyond a simple recommendation, including information about alternative options. To explore the role of this referential advice, we enrich the expert’s informational advantage in a canonical model of communication with hard information. We show that when constructed just right, referential advice dissuades the decision maker from choosing options other than the recommendation, thereby making the recommendation itself more persuasive. We identify an equilibrium in which, with probability 1, the expert is strictly better off providing referential advice than she is in any equilibrium in which she provides a recommendation alone.

中文翻译：

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参考建议的力量

专家建议通常超出简单的建议，包括有关替代选项的信息。为了探索这种参考建议的作用，我们在与硬信息交流的规范模型中丰富了专家的信息优势。我们表明，当构建得当时，参考建议会阻止决策者选择推荐以外的选项，从而使推荐本身更具说服力。我们确定了一个均衡，其中，在概率为 1 的情况下，专家提供参考建议比在她单独提供建议的任何均衡中都要好。