Research

We investigate the efficacy of the shadow of the future in sustaining information transmission under partially aligned interests by manipulating two institutional features: punishment severity and role uncertainty. While theory suggests that these features potentially facilitate fully revealing equilibria relative to a baseline of fixed roles and mild punishment, our experiment documents an asymmetric effect on sender and receiver behavior. Harsh punishment with fixed roles disciplines senders but fails to elicit trust from receivers. Conversely, mild punishment with role uncertainty fosters trust rather than honesty, supporting an outcome where senders obtain their preferred action without needing to be truthful. The combination of both features asymmetrically improves subjects' honesty as senders but discourages their trust as receivers. Our findings imply that mechanisms aiming for truthful and efficient communication must carefully tailor incentives for both roles, rather than relying solely on disciplining the informed sender.

Divide-and-conquer tactics often succeed not through mechanical coordination failures, but through epistemic friction regarding an aggressor's underlying intent. When an attacker strikes a first target, bystanders must infer whether the assault represents a localized grievance or a systemic campaign. If the attack is rationally interpreted as particularized, bystanders abstain, prompting the isolated victim to surrender. We demonstrate how higher attack costs and lower correlation between victims' fates facilitate this division. We then study how behavioral responses, rhetoric, treaty commitments, and downstream defense networks modify this inference.