What It Takes to Coordinate: Road to Efficiency through Communication and Commitment

Avoyan, Ala; Ramos, J. I.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2777644

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The parts of the literature that relate most closely to our setting are on (1) coordination games with Pareto-ranked equilibria, which cover both order-statistic games (e.g., Van Huyck et al, 1990;Van Huyck and Battalio, 2008) and stag-hunt games (e.g. Cooper et al, 1992;Battalio et al, 2001;Charness and Grosskopf, 2004) and (2) preplay communication/cheap talk (see for example Blume and Ortmann, 2007;Avoyan and Ramos, 2017, and some of the previous references). 12 Devetag and Ortmann (2007) and Cooper and Weber (2019) survey some of this literature and both point at a range of common factors that may enhance coordination.…”

Section: Related Literature and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Devetag and Ortmann (2007) point at several factors that may improve coordination: (1) smaller group sizes (e.g., Van Huyck et al, 1990); (2) lower attractiveness of the secure relative to the risky action (e.g., Brandts and Cooper, 2006); and (3) certain types of cheap talk/communication in certain types of games (e.g., Farrell, 1987;Cooper et al, 1992;Farrell and Rabin, 1996). Yet, as Avoyan and Ramos (2017) argue, while communication has been lauded for its potential to enhance coordination, there are also instances where it has had no effect (e.g., Cooper et al, 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cheap talk and coordination in the lab and in the field: Collective commercialization in Senegal

Aflagah

Bernard

Viceisza

2022

Journal of Development Economics

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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.

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