  We study strategic information transmission in a hierarchical setting where
information gets transmitted through a chain of agents up to a decision maker
whose action is of importance to every agent. This situation could arise
whenever an agent can communicate to the decision maker only through a chain of
intermediaries, for example, an entry-level worker and the CEO in a firm, or an
official in the bottom of the chain of command and the president in a
government. Each agent can decide to conceal part or all the information she
receives. Proving we can focus on simple equilibria, where the only player who
conceals information is the first one, we provide a tractable recursive
characterization of the equilibrium outcome, and show that it could be
inefficient. Interestingly, in the binary-action case, regardless of the number
of intermediaries, there are a few pivotal ones who determine the amount of
information communicated to the decision maker. In this case, our results
underscore the importance of choosing a pivotal vice president for maximizing
the payoff of the CEO or president.
