Arbeitspapier

Communication in asymmetric group competition over public goods

This paper examines whether and how cheap talk communication can facilitate within-group coordination when two unequal sized groups compete for a prize that is shared equally among members of the winning group, regardless of their (costly) contributions to the group's success. We find that allowing group members to communicate before making contribution decisions improves coordination. To measure how much miscoordination remains, we employ a control treatment where miscoordination is eliminated by asking group members to reach a unanimous contribution decision. Average group contributions are not significantly different in this control treatment. Cheap talk communication thus completely solves miscoordination within groups and makes group members act as a single agent. Furthermore, it is the larger group that benefits from communication at the expense of the smaller group. Finally, content analysis of group communication reveals that after the reduction of within-group strategic uncertainty, groups reach self-enforcing agreements on how much to contribute, designate specific contributors according to a rotation scheme, and quickly discover the logic of the mixed-strategy equilibrium.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Working Paper ; No. 69

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Noncooperative Games
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Public Goods
Thema
Group competition
Threshold public goods
Coordination
Cheap talk Communication
Content analysis
Experiments
Gruppenentscheidung
Öffentliche Güter
Nichtkooperatives Spiel
Test

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Zhang, Jingjing
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
University of Zurich, Department of Economics
(wo)
Zurich
(wann)
2012

DOI
doi:10.5167/uzh-61675
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Zhang, Jingjing
  • University of Zurich, Department of Economics

Entstanden

  • 2012

Ähnliche Objekte (12)