TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Gächter, Simon
AU  - Starmer, Chris
AU  - Tufano, Fabio
        TI  - Revealing the Economic Consequences of Group Cohesion
        PY  - 2017/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 10824
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp10824
        AB  - We introduce the concept of "group cohesion" to capture the economic consequences of ubiquitous social relationships in group production. We measure group cohesion, adapting the "oneness scale" from psychology. A comprehensive program of new experiments reveals the considerable economic impact of cohesion: higher cohesion groups are significantly more likely to achieve Pareto-superior outcomes in classic weak-link coordination games. 
We show that effects of cohesion are economically large, robust, and portable. We identify social preferences as a primary mechanism explaining the effects of cohesion. Our results provide proof of concept for group cohesion as a productive new tool of economic research.
        KW  - weak-link game
KW  - coordination
KW  - oneness
KW  - group cohesion
KW  - social relationships
KW  - experiments
KW  - real groups
        ER  -