This paper examines whether and how cheap talk communication can facilitate within-group coordination when two unequal sized groups compete for a prize that is shared equally among members of the winning group, regardless of their (costly) contributions to the group's success. We find that...

We study the stability of voluntary cooperation in response to varying group growth rates. Using a laboratory public-good game, we construct a situation where increasing group size yields potential efficiency gains, but only with sustained cooperation. We then study the effect of exogenously...

In this note I give a full characterization of all deterministic direct mechanisms in the public good provision problem with independent private values that are dominant strategy incentive compatible, ex-post individually rational, and ex-post budget balanced.

This paper studies Colonel Blotto games with two battlefields where one player has a head start in the form of additional troops on one of the battlefields. Such games arise naturally in marketing, electoral competition, and military conflict. Sion and Wolfe (1957) have shown that, if the...

As pointed out by Sion and Wolfe (1957), a non-cooperative game on the unit square need not admit a Nash equilibrium, neither in pure nor in randomized strategies. In this paper, we consider finite approximations of the Sion-Wolfe game. For all parameter constellations relevant for the limit...

We examine communication in a two-player coordination game with Pareto-ranked equilibria. Prior research demonstrates that efficient coordination is difficult without communication but obtains regularly with (mandatory) costless pre-play messages. In a laboratory experiment, we introduce two...

Efficient growth often requires the integration of individuals from lower-performing groups, firms, or societies into higher-performing ones. Such integration may be difficult without facilitating interventions or restrictions. We explore, using a laboratory experiment, the effectiveness of two...