Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Costless pre-play communication has been shown to effectively facilitate within-group coordination. However, in competitive coordination games, such as rent-seeking contests, better within-group coordination leads to more aggressive competition and lower efficiency. We report an experiment in which two groups compete in a weakest-link contest by expending costly efforts. We find that allowing within-group communication makes groups compete more aggressively. When only one group can communicate, the communicating group coordinates better and expends higher efforts than the non-communicating group. However, the communicating group earns payoffs that are not different from the baseline contest without any communication, while the non-communicating group earns lower payoffs than in this baseline contest. Allowing within-group communication in both groups leads to even more aggressive competition and the lowest payoffs to both groups. Despite such a “harmful” effect of communication, groups vote to endogenously open communication channels even though this leads to lower payoffs and efficiency.
Recommended Citation
Cason, T.N., Sheremeta, R., & Zhang, J. (2015). Asymmetric and endogenous communication in competition between groups. ESI Working Paper 15-01. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/2
Comments
Working Paper 15-01