Communication, Advice and Beliefs in an Experimental Public Goods Game

Ananish Chaudhuri (), Pushkar Maitra and Susan Skeath ()

No 05/06, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the efficacy of horizontal versus vertical social learning processes in a public goods game. In one treatment, subjects about to play the game can make nonbinding common knowledge announcements about their intentions while, in another, subjects do not communicate directly with group members but receive common knowledge advice from the previous generation of players. A third treatment has subjects play with neither communication nor advice. We find that groups that engage in peer communication achieve much lower levels of contribution to the public good than do groups that receive advice. We attribute this finding in part to the fact that some subjects in the communication treatment opted to make no announcement during the communication phase of play.

Keywords: Voluntary contributions mechanism; Advice; Communication; Beliefs; Experiments. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 C34 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2006-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe, nep-pbe and nep-soc
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