Testing for Effects of Cheap Talk in a Public Goods Game with Private Information

Abstract

We investigate a game where player endowments are private information. If two of the three players contribute their endowments, a "public" benefit is paid to all three players. In one treatment, there is a single move with simultaneous decisions. In a second, cheap talk treatment, players may send binary messages prior to the decision move. Experimental data strongly support the equilibrium model for the first treatment. The results are mixed for the cheap talk treatment. While subjects condition heavily on the messages they receive, message behavior is less systematic.

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