Not just babble: Opening the black box of communication in a voluntary contribution experiment

Olivier Bochet; Louis Putterman

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.005

Not just babble: Opening the black box of communication in a voluntary contribution experiment

Olivier Bochet, Louis Putterman

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We let subjects in a voluntary contribution experiment make non-binding numerical announcements about their "possible" contributions and, in some treatments, send written promises to contribute specific amounts. We find that announcements were responded to both by others' announcements and by real play, for example announcements led to costly punishment when found to be misleading. We also find that adding pre-play announcements to treatments with punishment can increase efficiency by letting cost-free warnings substitute for costly punishment. The threat of punishing false announcements and promises helps reduce false signals, but only when promise statements can be sent is the effect sufficient for achieving greater efficiency.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	309-326
Number of pages	18
Journal	European Economic Review
Volume	53
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.005
State	Published - Apr 2009

Keywords

Cheap talk
Collective action
Communication
Public goods
Punishment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Finance
Economics and Econometrics

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10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.005

Cite this

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title = "Not just babble: Opening the black box of communication in a voluntary contribution experiment",

abstract = "We let subjects in a voluntary contribution experiment make non-binding numerical announcements about their {"}possible{"} contributions and, in some treatments, send written promises to contribute specific amounts. We find that announcements were responded to both by others' announcements and by real play, for example announcements led to costly punishment when found to be misleading. We also find that adding pre-play announcements to treatments with punishment can increase efficiency by letting cost-free warnings substitute for costly punishment. The threat of punishing false announcements and promises helps reduce false signals, but only when promise statements can be sent is the effect sufficient for achieving greater efficiency.",

keywords = "Cheap talk, Collective action, Communication, Public goods, Punishment",

author = "Olivier Bochet and Louis Putterman",

note = "Funding Information: Funding for the experiments reported here came from a grant from the MacArthur Foundation Network on Norms and Preferences, and from National Science Foundation Grant SES-0001769. We wish to thank Toby Page for collaborating on the design of the experiments. We wish to thank Arno Riedl for helpful discussions and comments. We thank again the many students who assisted in carrying out the experiments reported in Bochet et al. (2006) , as well as Dennis Zachary Schubert and Dmitri Lemmerman, who programmed the new treatments. ",

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KW - Public goods

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Not just babble: Opening the black box of communication in a voluntary contribution experiment

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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