TY - JOUR
T1 - Communication in multilateral bargaining with joint production
AU - Baranski, Andrzej
AU - Cox, Caleb A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Gianluca Campanile, Thomas Yates, and Laila Al-Eisawi for excellent research assistance. We are grateful for helpful comments and conversations with Andrew Caplin, Alexander Cappelen, Guillaume Frechette, Andreas Leibbrandt, Rebecca Morton, Arkadi Predtetchinski, Ariel Rubinstein, Andy Schotter, Simon Siegenthaler, Erik Sorensen, and Bertil Tungodden. We benefited greatly from participants’ comments at the 2019 Maastricht Behavioral and Experimental Economics Symposium, 2019 New England Experimental Economics Workshop, the 2019 and 2021 ESA North American Meetings, and seminars at VCU School of Business, Norwegian School of Economics, and NYU CESS. Funding for this research was generously provided by NYU Abu Dhabi. Additional funding for research assistants was provided by VCU School of Business. Baranski gratefully recognizes financial support by Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute Award CG005. This study is registered in the AEA RCT Registry and the unique identifying Number is: AEARCTR-0003254.
Funding Information:
The authors thank Gianluca Campanile, Thomas Yates, and Laila Al-Eisawi for excellent research assistance. We are grateful for helpful comments and conversations with Andrew Caplin, Alexander Cappelen, Guillaume Frechette, Andreas Leibbrandt, Rebecca Morton, Arkadi Predtetchinski, Ariel Rubinstein, Andy Schotter, Simon Siegenthaler, Erik Sorensen, and Bertil Tungodden. We benefited greatly from participants’ comments at the 2019 Maastricht Behavioral and Experimental Economics Symposium, 2019 New England Experimental Economics Workshop, the 2019 and 2021 ESA North American Meetings, and seminars at VCU School of Business, Norwegian School of Economics, and NYU CESS. Funding for this research was generously provided by NYU Abu Dhabi. Additional funding for research assistants was provided by VCU School of Business. Baranski gratefully recognizes financial support by Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute Award CG005. This study is registered in the AEA RCT Registry and the unique identifying Number is: AEARCTR-0003254.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - We experimentally investigate the effect of pre-bargaining communication on productive incentives in a multilateral bargaining game with joint production under two conditions: observable and unobservable investments. In both conditions, communication fosters fair sharing and is rarely used to pit individuals against each other. Proportional sharing arises with observable investments with or without communication, leading to high efficiency gains. Without investment observability, communication is widely used to truthfully report investments and call for equitable sharing, allowing substantial efficiency gains. Since communication occurs after production, our results highlight a novel indirect channel through which communication can enhance efficiency in social dilemmas. Our results contrast with previous findings on bargaining over an exogenous fund, where communication leads to highly unequal outcomes, competitive messages, and virtually no appeals to fairness.
AB - We experimentally investigate the effect of pre-bargaining communication on productive incentives in a multilateral bargaining game with joint production under two conditions: observable and unobservable investments. In both conditions, communication fosters fair sharing and is rarely used to pit individuals against each other. Proportional sharing arises with observable investments with or without communication, leading to high efficiency gains. Without investment observability, communication is widely used to truthfully report investments and call for equitable sharing, allowing substantial efficiency gains. Since communication occurs after production, our results highlight a novel indirect channel through which communication can enhance efficiency in social dilemmas. Our results contrast with previous findings on bargaining over an exogenous fund, where communication leads to highly unequal outcomes, competitive messages, and virtually no appeals to fairness.
KW - Communication
KW - Multilateral bargaining
KW - Profit sharing
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U2 - 10.1007/s10683-022-09760-z
DO - 10.1007/s10683-022-09760-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85131089686
SN - 1386-4157
VL - 26
SP - 55
EP - 77
JO - Experimental Economics
JF - Experimental Economics
IS - 1
ER -