experiment whether gossip affects the efficiency of human interactions. We let subjects play a trust game. Third parties observe … possibility of gossip is highly efficiency-increasing compared to a situation without any gossip. In two further control … treatments, we show that the mere fact of being observed by third parties cannot explain the efficiency-increasing effect of …

efficiency and equity of the final outcome. Furthermore, these tendencies are stronger when the two players have conflicting …

theft and most groups achieve much greater efficiency in the presence of communication. Ease of identifying who has engaged …