On Smiles, Winks and Handshakes as Coordination Devices

Paola Manzini, Abdolkarim Sadrieh and Nicolaas Vriend

Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 119, issue 537, 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
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: On Smiles, Winks and Handshakes as Coordination Devices (2009)
Working Paper: On Smiles, Winks, and Handshakes as Coordination Devices (2002)
Working Paper: On Smiles, Winks, and Handshakes 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: https://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 currently edited by Martin Cripps, Steve Machin, Woulter den Haan, Andrea Galeotti, Rachel Griffith and Frederic Vermeulen

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().