Ben-Ner, Avner and Louis Putterman. 2009. Trust, communication and contrast: An experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 70(1-2):106-121.
In the one-shot trust or
investment game without opportunities for reputation formation or
contracting, economic theory predicts no trusting because there is no incentive
for trustworthiness.
Under these conditions, theory predicts (a) no effect of pre-play
communication,
and (b) universal preference for moderate cost binding contracts over
interacting without
contracts. We introduce the opportunities to engage in pre-play communication
and to
enter binding or non-binding contracts, and find (a) communication increases
trusting and
trustworthiness, (b) contracts are largely unnecessary for trusting and
trustworthy behaviors
and are eschewed by many players, (c) more trusting leads to higher earnings,
and
(d) both trustors and trustees favor “fair and efficient” proposals over the
more unequal
proposals predicted by theory.