Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/71968 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2007-19
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Department of Public Finance, Innsbruck
Abstract: 
We study the effects of communication in an experimental tournament between teams. When teams, rather than individuals, compete for a prize there is a need for intra-team coordination in order to win the inter-team competition. Introducing communication in such situations may have ambiguous effects on effort choices. Communication within teams may promote higher efforts by mitigating the internal free-rider problem. Communication between competing teams may lead to collusion, thereby reducing efforts. In our experiment we control the channels of communication by letting subjects communicate through an electronic chat. We find, indeed, that communication within teams increases efforts and communication between teams reduces efforts. We use team members? dialogues to explain these effects of communication, and check the robustness of our results.
Subjects: 
tournament
team decision making
communication
collusion
freeriding
experiment
JEL: 
C92
J33
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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