Angelino Viceisza
Department of Economics
Spelman College
350 Spelman Lane SW
Atlanta, GA 30314
Tel: 404/270-6055
E-Mail: 
WWW: https://www.angelinoviceisza.com/
NBER Program Affiliations:
PR
NBER Affiliation: Research Associate
Institutional Affiliation: Spelman College
NBER Working Papers and Publications
July 2019 | Cheap Talk and Coordination in the Lab and in the Field: Collective Commercialization in Senegal
with Fo Kodjo Dzinyefa Aflagah, Tanguy Bernard: w26045
Coordination is central to social interactions. Theory and conventional lab experiments suggest that cheap talk/communication can enhance coordination under certain conditions. Two aspects that remain underexplored are (1) the interaction between the number of players (group size) and communication and (2) how existing findings might play out in the field. We address both of these by studying a typical naturally-occurring setting that requires coordination; that is, one where members of agricultural cooperatives seek to jointly sell their output. Combining artefactual/lab-in-the-field experiments (LFEs), natural field experiments (RCTs), surveys, and cooperative records, we find that (1) revealing farmers' intended sales (i.e., cheap talk/communication) yields enhanced collective commer... |
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