Abstract
We introduce an incentive mechanism to elicit answers to binary questions that cannot be verified for accuracy. Agents choose whether to receive a costly private signal, which leads them to endorse “yes” or “no” as an answer. Then, they either buy or sell an asset, whose value is determined by the endorsement rate of “yes” answers. We obtain a separating equilibrium, where agents want signals and trade the asset as a function of their signal. Two experimental studies test the theoretical results. The first shows that the mechanism motivates costly information acquisition. The second demonstrates feasibility in a natural setting.