We examine communication in a two-player coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria. Prior research demonstrates that efficient coordination is difficult without communication but obtains regularly with (mandatory) costless pre-play messages. In a laboratory experiment, we introduce two...

We let subjects interact with anonymous partners in trust (investment) games with and without one of two kinds of pre-play communication: numerical (tabular) only, and verbal and numerical. We find that either kind of pre-play communication increases trusting, trustworthiness, or both, in...

In a recent paper, Jäger, Metzger, and Riedel (2011) study communication games of common interest when signals are simple and types complex. They characterize strict Nash equilibria as so-called Voronoi languages that consist of Voronoi tesselations of the type set and Bayesian estimators on...

It is well known that communication often serves as a facilitator for cooperation in static games. Yet, communication can serve entirely different purposes in dynamic settings as communication during the game may work as a means for renegotiation, potentially undermining the credibility of...

Can comparative statements be credible even when absolute statements are not? For instance, can a professor credibly rank different students for a prospective employer even if she has an incentive to exaggerate the merits of each student? Or can an analyst credibly rank different stocks even if...

We show that essentially every communication equilibrium of any finite Bayesian game with two players can be implemented as a strategic form correlated equilibrium of an extended game, in which before choosing actions as in the Bayesian game, the players engage in a pos-sibly infinitely long...

In a public goods experiment, subjects can vary over a period of stochastic length two contribution levels: one is publicly observable (their cheap talk stated intention), while the other is not seen by the others (their secret intention). When the period suddenly stops, participants are...