Restricted and free-form cheap-talk and the scope for efficient coordination

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dugar, Subhasish; Shahriar, Quazi
• 署名单位: Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah; California State University System; San Diego State University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.01.003
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 294-310
• 关键词: Coordination game; cheap-talk; laboratory experiment

摘要

This paper is the first to compare the efficiency-enhancing capacity of two communication protocols in experimental stag-hunt games. The traditional restricted protocol that allows communicating intentions only fails to improve efficiency over the no-communication conditions. When players are allowed to send any messages (free-form), the majority of them send messages that underscore a reason for which players should choose the efficient action. To explore further whether the absence of such a richer message in the traditional restricted communication protocol can be the cause of its ineffectiveness, we ran an additional treatment that included the intention-based message as well as a reason based message. The data show that the richer restricted communication is as effective as free-form communication, and that reason-based messages are an effective efficiency enhancing device in this class of coordination games regardless of whether the protocol is restricted or free-form. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.