The Value of Weak Commitment

In biand multilateral interactions, parties frequently make weak commitments, i.e., commitments to future actions from which they may nonetheless deviate at some cost. For example, partners in a strategic alliance usually increase their mutual commitment step by step, where intermediate stages imply only a weak commitment. This paper proposes a new mechanism by which weak commitments lead to improved cooperation between interacting parties. The paper presents evidence that this mechanism helps to explain the emergence of cooperation for a large number of situations.