WAITING TO COOPERATE?

Todd Kaplan, Bradley Ruffle and Zeev Shtudiner

No 1314, Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics

Abstract: Sometimes cooperation between two parties requires exactly one to cede to the other. If the decisions whether to cede are made simultaneously, then neither or both may acquiesce leading to an inefficient outcome. However, inefficiency may be avoided if a party can wait to see what the other does. We experimentally test whether adding a waiting option to such a two-player cooperation game enhances cooperation. Although subjects cede less overall with the waiting option, we show that they coordinate more and consequently achieve higher profits. Yet, a dark side overhangs waiting: the least cooperative pairs do worse with this option. They wait not to facilitate coordination but to disguise their entry.

Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/humsos/Econ/Workingpapers/1314.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Waiting to Cooperate? (2013)
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:bgu:wpaper:1314

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Aamer Abu-Qarn ().