Communication structure and coalition-proofness – Experimental evidence

Gilles Grandjean, Marco Mantovani, Ana Mauleon and Vincent Vannetelbosch

European Economic Review, 2017, vol. 94, issue C, 90-102

Abstract: The paper analyzes the role of the structure of communication—i.e. who is talking with whom—in a coordination game. We run an experiment in a three-player game with Pareto ranked equilibria, where a pair of players has a profitable joint deviation from the Pareto-superior equilibrium. We show that specific communication structures lead to different ‘coalition-proof’ equilibria in this game. Results match the theoretical predictions. Subjects communicate and play the Pareto-superior equilibrium when communication is public. When pairs of players exchange messages privately, subjects play the Pareto-inferior equilibrium. Even in these latter cases, however, players’ beliefs and choices tend to react to messages, despite the fact that these are not credible.

Keywords: Cheap-talk communication; Coordination; Coalition-proof Nash equilibrium; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D03 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292117300326
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Communication structure and coalition-proofness: experimental evidence (2017)
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:eee:eecrev:v:94:y:2017:i:c:p:90-102

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.02.007

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().