Cheap Talk Comparisons by a Clearly Biased Expert∗

We consider cheap talk by a biased expert comparing multiple issues, e.g., discussion of different spending proposals by an industry lobbyist, evaluation of different stocks by a sell-side analyst, or analysis of different topics by a biased newspaper. When the expert’s motives are sufficiently transparent, we find that cheap talk is credible and influential even when the expert strongly favors one issue over another, e.g., negative advertising against a rival by a political or marketing campaign. The transparency condition holds for state-independent preferences and for standard Euclidean preferences as the expert’s bias toward a higher (or lower) action on each issue becomes arbitrarily large. JEL Classification: C72, D72, D82.