Costless pre-play communication has been shown to effectively facilitate within-group coordination. However, in … costly efforts. We find that allowing within-group communication makes groups compete more aggressively. When only one group …. However, the communicating group earns payoffs that are not different from the baseline contest without any communication …

Costless pre-play communication has been found to effectively facilitate coordination and enhance efficiency in games … costly efforts. Allowing intra-group communication leads to more aggressive competition and greater coordination than control … treatments without any communication. On the other hand, allowing inter-group communication leads to less destructive competition …