Cheap Talk and Coordination in the Lab and in the Field: Collective Commercialization in Senegal

Fo Kodjo Dzinyefa Aflagah, Tanguy Bernard and Angelino Viceisza

No 26045, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Coordination is central to social interactions. Theory and conventional lab experiments suggest that cheap talk/communication can enhance coordination under certain conditions. Two aspects that remain underexplored are (1) the interaction between the number of players (group size) and communication and (2) how existing findings might play out in the field. We address both of these by studying a typical naturally-occurring setting that requires coordination; that is, one where members of agricultural cooperatives seek to jointly sell their output. Combining artefactual/lab-in-the-field experiments (LFEs), natural field experiments (RCTs), surveys, and cooperative records, we find that (1) revealing farmers' intended sales (i.e., cheap talk/communication) yields enhanced collective commercialization (i.e., coordination), particularly in larger groups; (2) such cheap talk may lead to higher incomes for small-scale farmers; (3) participants transfer learning from the LFEs thus affecting subsequent behavior in the RCTs (i.e., the day-to-day environment). Our results contribute to existing literature by highlighting the potential for cheap-talk institutions to (1) boost coordination, particularly in settings with greater strategic uncertainty (e.g., larger farmer cooperatives), and (2) promote collective entrepreneurship and development.

JEL-codes: C92 C93 D7 L26 O12 P32 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-gth
Note: DEV PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Journal of Development Economics Volume 154, January 2022, 102751

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26045.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Cheap talk and coordination in the lab and in the field: Collective commercialization in Senegal (2022)
Working Paper: Cheap Talk and Coordination in the Lab and in the Field: Collective Commercialization in Senegal (2022)
Working Paper: Cheap Talk and Coordination in the Lab and in the Field: Collective Commercialization in Senegal (2019)
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:nbr:nberwo:26045

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26045

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().