Markov Information Processes

Abstract

We study information design when a designer with commitment shapes the information of strategically interacting, far-sighted agents whose actions drive a persistent, controlled Markov state. We introduce the Markov Bayes correlated equilibrium (Markov BCE), the controlled-Markov generalisation of the BCE of Bergemann and Morris (2016), characterised by a dynamic obedience condition that adds a continuation-value term to the static one and reduces to it when actions cannot move the state. Recommending actions is without loss; the designer's problem is recursive in the agents' promised continuation utilities and is solved by a set-valued backward-induction algorithm whose optimum exists and lies between the no-disclosure and first-best values. For linear-quadratic-Gaussian payoffs the obedience condition becomes a covariance condition with a modified interaction matrix, and the stationary case reduces to an algebraic Riccati equation. When agents instead learn the transition, we identify the rent an agent earns from a model of the dynamics sharper than the designer anticipates: it is non-negative, zero at the known-dynamics benchmark, and deterred only by building slack into obedience. Under persistent excitation the cumulative rent grows logarithmically as heterogeneous agents' estimates converge. Two worked examples, in congestion and resource coordination, together with a numerical study illustrate the theory.