How does the effect of communication vary with group size? Experimental evidence from the multi-player stag hunt

Nick Feltovich and Philip Grossman

No 33-14, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Numerous studies have examined factors influencing the likelihood of cooperative outcomes in nonzero-sum games, but there has been little study of the interaction between two of the most important: group size and communication. We report results from an experiment in which groups of size between 2 and 15 play a one-shot multi-player stag-hunt game. In our full communication treatment, all group members write a cheap-talk message, with one randomly chosen to be sent. In a choice only treatment, subjects write messages but none is sent, and in a baseline treatment, there are no messages at all. We find a significant negative interaction between the group size and the presence/content of communication: the beneficial effect of communication on cooperation, cooperative outcomes, and payoffs decreases sharply as the group size increases. Our results suggest that care should be taken in generalising conclusions from small-group experiments to large-group settings in the outside world.

Keywords: communication; coordination; cooperation; group decision making; equilibrium selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/paper ... eltovichgrossman.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2014/3314effectfeltovichgrossman.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business/ [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business)

Related works:
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:mos:moswps:2014-33

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.monash.e ... esearch/publications

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Angus ().