On Smiles, Winks and Handshakes as Coordination Devices

Paola Manzini (), Abdolkarim Sadrieh () and Nicolaas J. Vriend ()

Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 119, issue 537, pages 826-854

Abstract: In an experimental study we examine a variant of the 'minimum effort game', a coordination game with Pareto ranked equilibria and risk considerations pointing to the least efficient equilibrium. We focus on the question whether simple cues such as smiles, winks and handshakes could be recognised and employed by the players as a tell-tale sign of each other's trustworthiness, thus enabling them to coordinate on the more risky but more rewarding Pareto efficient equilibrium. Our experimental results show that such cues may indeed play a role as coordination devices as their information value is significant and substantial. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009.

Date: 2009
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02253.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: On smiles, winks, and handshake as coordination devices (2002)
Working Paper: On Smiles, Winks, and Handshakes as Coordination Devices (2002)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:537:p:826-854

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is edited by Antonio Ciccone, Leonardo Felli, Steve Machin, Andrew Scott, Steve Pischke and David Myatt

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().