Wilson, Alistarir J. and Vespa, Emanuel

Information transmission under the shadow of the future: An experiment - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics - 12(4), Nov, 2020: p.75-98

We experimentally examine how information transmission functions in an ongoing relationship. Where the one-shot cheap-talk literature documents substantial overcommunication and preferences for honesty, the outcomes in our repeated setting are more consistent with uninformative babbling outcomes. This is particularly surprising, as honest revelation is supportable as an equilibrium outcome in our repeated setting. We show that inefficient outcomes are driven by a coordination failure on how to distribute the gains from information sharing. However, when agents can coordinate on the payment of an "information rent," honest revelation emerges. – Reproduced


Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness, Design of Experiments, Laboratory, Group Behavior