Schott et al. (2007) have shown that the “tragedy of the commons” can be overcome when individuals share their output equally in groups of optimal size and there is no communication. The assignment of individuals to groups as either strangers or partners does not significantly affect this...

Twenty-four laboratory sessions were conducted to evaluate the roles of communication and group heterogeneity when voluntary contributions determine the level of public good provision by small groups of individuals. Simple heterogeneity has one individual in a group having either greater...

In an experiment, we studied how small groups tackle a company takeover game, a task where participants deciding in isolation frequently exhibit the winner’s curse. We found that groups of three members, who could exchange opinions and chat, substantially reduced the winner's curse and...

This paper studies how groups resolve disagreement when they must reach unanimity after submitting individual proposals and exchanging text-form messages via a chat window in lottery choice experiments. We find that the majority proposal does not always prevail. The minority proposal prevails...

This experimental study explores how communication influences efficiency, trust and trustworthiness in a small group when one member is left out of communication. To study this problem, we introduce a novel three-player trust game where player 1 can send any portion of his endowment to player 2....