Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15711
Authors: Antonio Cabrales; Francesco Feri; Piero Gottardi; Miguel A. Meléndez Jiménez
Abstract: This paper reports on experiments regarding cheap talk games wheresenders attempt deception when their interests are not in conflict with those of thereceiver. The amount of miscommunication is higher than in previousexperimental findings on cheap talk games in situations where senders’ andreceivers’ interests are not in conflict. We obtain this even though, as in previousliterature, some participants appear to feature a cost of lying. We argue ourfindings could be attributed to distributional preferences of senders who lie toavoid the receiver getting a higher payoff than herself.
Keywords: experiments; cheap talk; deception; conflicts of interest; social preferences
JEL Codes: D83; C72; G14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| distributional preferences (D39) | higher propensity to lie (D91) |
| envious and nonprosocial preferences (D63) | higher propensity to lie (D91) |
| absence of conflict of interest (G38) | examination of preferences without constraints (D10) |
| social preferences (D71) | communication behavior (L96) |
| miscommunication in cheap talk games (C72) | higher than previously observed (Y50) |