IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/cejnor/v25y2017i2d10.1007_s10100-016-0444-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cheap talk and cooperation in Stackelberg games

Author

Listed:
  • Raimo P. Hämäläinen

    (Aalto University School of Science)

  • Ilkka Leppänen

    (Aalto University School of Science)

Abstract

Previous literature on cheap talk suggests that it is used to increase cooperation. We study cheap talk and the effect of the leader’s private payoff information in new repeated Stackelberg game settings. Our results confirm earlier studies that the players cooperate in repeated Stackelberg games with complete payoff information. In the cheap talk setting the follower has the actual first mover advantage and should in theory benefit from it, but we find that many followers cooperate instead. Similarly, many leaders do not use cheap talk for cheating but commit to symmetric joint-optimum quantities. The leader’s private payoff information results in a low frequency of cooperation but in the presence of cheap talk players do cooperate.

Suggested Citation

  • Raimo P. Hämäläinen & Ilkka Leppänen, 2017. "Cheap talk and cooperation in Stackelberg games," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 25(2), pages 261-285, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:cejnor:v:25:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10100-016-0444-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10100-016-0444-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10100-016-0444-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10100-016-0444-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miguel Fonseca & Wieland Müller & Hans-Theo Normann, 2006. "Endogenous timing in duopoly: experimental evidence," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 34(3), pages 443-456, October.
    2. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    3. Mailath George J., 1993. "Endogenous Sequencing of Firm Decisions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 169-182, February.
    4. Huck, Steffen & Muller, Wieland & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2002. "To Commit or Not to Commit: Endogenous Timing in Experimental Duopoly Markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 240-264, February.
    5. Tore Ellingsen & Robert Östling, 2010. "When Does Communication Improve Coordination?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1695-1724, September.
    6. Huck, Steffen & Muller, Wieland & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2001. "Stackelberg Beats Cournot: On Collusion and Efficiency in Experimental Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(474), pages 749-765, October.
    7. Cardella, Eric & Chiu, Ray, 2012. "Stackelberg in the lab: The effect of group decision making and “Cooling-off” periods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1070-1083.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    9. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    10. Muller, Wieland, 2006. "Allowing for two production periods in the Cournot duopoly: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 100-111, May.
    11. James C. Cox & Daniel Friedman & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2008. "Revealed Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 31-69, January.
    12. Guth, Werner & Muller, Wieland & Spiegel, Yossi, 2006. "Noisy leadership: An experimental approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 37-62, October.
    13. Santos-Pinto, Luís, 2008. "Making sense of the experimental evidence on endogenous timing in duopoly markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 657-666, December.
    14. Timothy Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 2007. "Communication and coordination in the laboratory collective resistance game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 251-267, September.
    15. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    16. Steffen Huck & Brian Wallace, 2002. "Reciprocal strategies and aspiration levels in a Cournot-Stackelberg experiment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(3), pages 1-7.
    17. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.
    18. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    19. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2002:i:3:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Christoph H. Loch & Yaozhong Wu, 2008. "Social Preferences and Supply Chain Performance: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1835-1849, November.
    21. Cox, James C. & Friedman, Daniel & Gjerstad, Steven, 2007. "A tractable model of reciprocity and fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-45, April.
    22. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    23. Joseph Farrell, 1987. "Cheap Talk, Coordination, and Entry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(1), pages 34-39, Spring.
    24. Rabin Matthew, 1994. "A Model of Pre-game Communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 370-391, August.
    25. Charness, Gary & Rabin, Matthew, 2005. "Expressed preferences and behavior in experimental games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 151-169, November.
    26. Charness, Gary, 2000. "Self-Serving Cheap Talk: A Test Of Aumann's Conjecture," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 177-194, November.
    27. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    28. Sanjiv Erat & Uri Gneezy, 2012. "White Lies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 723-733, April.
    29. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    30. Russell Cooper & Douglas V. DeJong & Robert Forsythe & Thomas W. Ross, 1992. "Communication in Coordination Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 739-771.
    31. Daniel Balliet, 2010. "Communication and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: A Meta-Analytic Review," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(1), pages 39-57, February.
    32. Timothy N. Cason & Vai‐Lam Mui, 2014. "Coordinating Resistance Through Communication and Repeated Interaction," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 226-256, February.
    33. Crawford, Vincent, 1998. "A Survey of Experiments on Communication via Cheap Talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 286-298, February.
    34. Arleta Rasmußen, 2014. "The influence of face-to-face communication: a principal-agent experiment," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 22(1), pages 73-88, March.
    35. Charles F. Mason & Owen R. Phillips, 1997. "Information And Cost Asymmetry In Experimental Duopoly Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 290-299, May.
    36. Clark, Kenneth & Sefton, Martin, 2001. "Repetition and signalling: experimental evidence from games with efficient equilibria," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 357-362, March.
    37. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, December.
    38. Albaek, Svend, 1990. "Stackelberg Leadership as a Natural Solution under Cost Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 335-347, March.
    39. Waichman, Israel & Requate, Till & Siang, Ch’ng Kean, 2014. "Communication in Cournot competition: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-16.
    40. Cason, Timothy N., 1995. "Cheap talk price signaling in laboratory markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 183-204, June.
    41. Morgan, John & Vardy, Felix, 2004. "An experimental study of commitment in Stackelberg games with observation costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 401-423, November.
    42. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2003. "Truth or Consequences: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(1), pages 116-130, January.
    43. Tanga Morae Mcdaniel, 2011. "Coordination In Games With Incomplete Information: Experimental Results," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(04), pages 461-474.
    44. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    45. Friedman, Eric & Shor, Mikhael & Shenker, Scott & Sopher, Barry, 2004. "An experiment on learning with limited information: nonconvergence, experimentation cascades, and the advantage of being slow," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 325-352, May.
    46. T. M. McDaniel, 2011. "Coordination in games with incomplete information: experimental results," Working Papers 11-03, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    2. López-Pérez, Raúl, 2009. "The Power of Words: Why Communication fosters Cooperation and Efficiency," Working Papers in Economic Theory 2009/01, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).
    3. López-Pérez, Raúl, 2012. "The power of words: A model of honesty and fairness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 642-658.
    4. Francisca Jiménez-Jiménez & Javier Rodero Cosano, 2021. "Experimental cheap talk games: strategic complementarity and coordination," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 235-263, September.
    5. Miettinen, Topi, 2013. "Promises and conventions – An approach to pre-play agreements," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 68-84.
    6. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    7. Shakun Datta Mago & Emmanuel Dechenaux, 2009. "Price leadership and firm size asymmetry: an experimental analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(3), pages 289-317, September.
    8. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Jason F. Shogren & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2018. "Coordination with communication under oath," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(3), pages 627-649, September.
    9. Hildenbrand, Andreas, 2013. "Is a firm a firm? A Stackelberg experiment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-26.
    10. Roy, Nilanjan, 2017. "Action revision, information and collusion in an experimental duopoly market," MPRA Paper 77033, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Charness, Gary B & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2008. "Broken Promises: An Experiment," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt6836m74q, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    12. Normann, Hans-Theo & Rösch, Jürgen & Schultz, Luis Manuel, 2015. "Do buyer groups facilitate collusion?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 72-84.
    13. Cardella, Eric & Chiu, Ray, 2012. "Stackelberg in the lab: The effect of group decision making and “Cooling-off” periods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1070-1083.
    14. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Müller, Wieland & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2014. "Output commitment through product bundling: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 164-180.
    15. Feltovich, Nick & Grossman, Philip J., 2015. "How does the effect of pre-play suggestions vary with group size? Experimental evidence from a threshold public-good game," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 263-280.
    16. Siyu Wang & Timothy Flannery, 2021. "Intention or Request: The Impact of Message Structures," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, February.
    17. Russell Golman, 2020. "New Directions in Behavioral Game Theory: Introduction to the Special Issue," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-3, November.
    18. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.
    19. Koukoumelis, Anastasios & Levati, M. Vittoria & Weisser, Johannes, 2012. "Leading by words: A voluntary contribution experiment with one-way communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 379-390.
    20. Duffy, John & Feltovich, Nick, 2002. "Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? An Experimental Comparison of Observation and Cheap Talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-27, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:cejnor:v:25:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10100-016-0444-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.