ABSTRACT
Charness and Dufwenberg’s paper is an exemplary one in experimental economics because of its outstanding contributions in motivation, design, and interpretation. First, it addresses the very general question of how communication increases cooperation in a particularly interesting situation – in a trust game with a promise option. Second, the design is clean and has interesting features. It is based on a binary version of the trust game in which promises are easy to interpret, and the collection of higher-order beliefs provides a tight link to the theoretical model. Third, the use of a theoretical model as a basis for the experiment provides an interpretation that can be tested in much detail. Thus, the paper provides useful tools for experimental economics and it is influential because it initiated the investigation of promises and the role of guilt aversion.
