Credible communication and cooperation: Experimental evidence from multi-stage Games

► This paper experimentally investigates cooperation and non-binding communication in a two-stage game. ► Two treatments are considered: one with only pre-play communication and one where subjects can also communicate intra-play between the stages of the game. ► Pre-play communication has a signific...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of economic behavior & organization Jg. 81; H. 1; S. 207 - 219
Hauptverfasser: Andersson, Ola, Wengström, Erik
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Elsevier B.V 2012
Schlagworte:
Communication
Cooperation
Economics
Economics and Business
Economics and Econometrics
Ekonomi och näringsliv
Experiments
Game theory
Messages
Nationalekonomi
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Renegotiation
Samhällsvetenskap
Social Sciences
Renegotiation
C92
Experiments
Cooperation
C72
Communication
ISSN:0167-2681, 1879-1751, 1879-1751
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:► This paper experimentally investigates cooperation and non-binding communication in a two-stage game. ► Two treatments are considered: one with only pre-play communication and one where subjects can also communicate intra-play between the stages of the game. ► Pre-play communication has a significantly lower impact on cooperation when intra-play communication is possible. ► The results suggest that the credibility of pre-play messages may depend crucially on future communication opportunities. It is well known that communication often serves as a facilitator for cooperation in static games. Yet, communication can serve entirely different purposes in dynamic settings as communication during the game may work as a means for renegotiation, potentially undermining the credibility of cooperative strategies. To explore this issue, this paper experimentally investigates cooperation and non-binding communication in a two-stage game. More specifically, two treatments are considered: one with only pre-play communication and one where subjects can also communicate intra-play between the stages of the game. The results highlight a nontrivial difference concerning the effects of pre-play communication between the two treatments. Sending or receiving pre-play messages has a positive and significant effect on cooperation if there is no possibility of intra-play communication. However, this effect is significantly reduced when when intra-play communication is allowed. The results suggest that the credibility of pre-play messages may depend crucially on future communication opportunities.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2011.10.002