The Demand for (Useless) Communication
The DEMS Economics Seminar series is proud to host
Boris van Leeuwen
(Tilburg University)
with R. Aarts, T. Offerman and P. Smeets
ABSTRACT
In many organizations, people spend a substantial part of their time participating in meetings. While meetings often help groups to make better decisions, in some cases meetings may be futile or may even lead to worse decisions. The enormous amount of time spent in meetings suggests that people may not do well at valuing communication and correctly estimating in which cases it’s helpful, and in which cases it’s not. To study this, we investigate people’s demand for communication. In a laboratory experiment, we measure people’s willingness to pay to communicate face-to-face for different tasks. We compare the willingness to pay for communication to the monetary value-added of communication. We find that -on average- people pay too much for communication. Moreover, people do not accurately assess when communication pays off, as the monetary value-added of communication does not predict people’s willingness to pay to communicate.
The seminar will be in presence, Seminar Room 2104, Building U7-2nd floor