Koukoumelis, Anastasios

Levati, M. Vittoria

Weisser, Johannes (Economist)

2009-106

Cheap-talk

Computer-mediated communication

Cooperation

Public goods experiment

In this paper, we study a voluntary contribution mechanism with one-way communication. The relevance of one person's words is assessed by assigning exogenously the role of the "communicator" to one group member. Contrary to the view that the mutual exchange of promises is necessary for the cooperation-enhancing effect of communication, we ï¬nd that, compared to a standard voluntary contribution mechanism with no communication, one-way communication signiï¬cantly increases contributions and renders them stable over time. Moreover, the positive effects of one-way communication persist even when communication is one-shot.