Common-Value Public Goods and Informational Social Dilemmas

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cox, Caleb A.; Stoddard, Brock
• 署名单位: Virginia Commonwealth University; University of North Carolina; Appalachian State University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20180275
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 343-369
• 关键词: voluntary contribution games; chi-squared tests; PRISONERS-DILEMMA; cheap talk; COMMUNICATION; BEHAVIOR; PRIVATE; RISK; uncertainty; COOPERATION

摘要

We experimentally examine private information and communication in a public goods environment with uncertain returns. We consider a common-value public goods game in which the return to contribution is either high or low. Before contributing, three players observe private signals correlated with the return and send cheap talk messages to one another. There are social gains from truthfulness, but a private incentive to exaggerate. We compare treatments with and without cheap talk, finding that communication is largely truthful and increases efficiency. In further treatments, we increase the incentive to exaggerate and find reduced truthfulness and smaller gains from communication.