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Rules and Commitment in Communication: an Experimental Analysis

Guillaume R. Fréchette,A. Lizzeri,Jacopo Perego

Published 2019 in Social Science Research Network

ABSTRACT

We study the role of commitment in communication and its interactions with rules, which determine whether information is verifiable. Our framework nests models of cheap talk, information disclosure, and Bayesian persuasion. It predicts that commitment has opposite effects on information transmission under the two alternative rules. We leverage these contrasting forces to experimentally establish that subjects react to commitment in line with the main qualitative implications of the theory. Quantitatively, not all subjects behave as predicted. We show that a form of commitment blindness leads some senders to overcommunicate when information is verifiable and undercommunicate when it is not. This generates an unpredicted gap in information transmission across the two rules, suggesting a novel role for verifiable information in practice.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2019

  • Venue

    Social Science Research Network

  • Publication date

    2019-10-01

  • Fields of study

    Computer Science, Economics, Psychology

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.3386/w26404
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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