We test whether promises per se are effective in enhancing cooperative behavior in a form of trust game. In a new treatment, rather than permitting free-form messages, we instead allow only a bare promise-only message to be sent (or not). We find that bare promises are much less effective in...

"An informative and entertaining account of how actions send signals that shape behaviors and how to design better incentives for better results in our life, our work, and our world Incentives send powerful signals that aim to influence behavior. But often there is a conflict between what we say...