When Does Communication Improve Coordination?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ellingsen, Tore; Ostling, Robert
• 署名单位: Stockholm School of Economics; Stockholm University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.100.4.1695
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 1695-1724
• 关键词: pre-play communication; cheap-talk; strategic thinking; guessing games; INFORMATION; MODEL; equilibrium; COOPERATION; EFFICIENCY; cognition

摘要

We study costless pre-play communication of intentions among inexperienced players. Using the level-k model of strategic thinking to describe players' beliefs, we fully characterize the effects of preplay communication in symmetric 2 x 2 games. One-way communication weakly increases coordination on Nash equilibrium outcomes, although average payoffs sometimes decrease. Two-way communication further improves payoffs in some games but is detrimental in others. Moving beyond the class of symmetric 2 x 2 games, we find that communication facilitates coordination in common interest games with positive spillovers and strategic complementarities, but there are also games in which any type of communication hampers coordination. (JEL C72, D83)