IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v139y2008i1p25-46.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coordination of mobile labor

Author

Listed:
  • Steiner, Jakub

Abstract

We study coordination failures in many simultaneously occurring coordination problems. Players encounter one of the problems but have the outside option of migrating to one of the remaining ones. Drawing on the global games approach, we show that such a mobile game has a unique equilibrium that allows us to examine comparative statics. The endogeneity of the outside option value and of the migration activity leads to non-monotonicity of welfare with respect to mobility friction; high mobility may hurt players. We apply these "general equilibrium'' findings to the problem of the labor market during industrialization as described by Matsuyama [Increasing returns, industrialization and indeterminacy of equilibrium, Quart. J. Econ. 106 (1991) 617-650].

Suggested Citation

  • Steiner, Jakub, 2008. "Coordination of mobile labor," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 25-46, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:139:y:2008:i:1:p:25-46
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(07)00080-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Byeongju Jeong, 2003. "The Welfare Effects of Mobility Restrictions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(3), pages 685-696, July.
    2. Steiner, Jakub, 2008. "Coordination of mobile labor," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 25-46, March.
    3. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    4. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson & Avner Shaked, 1997. "Endogenous Interactions," CARESS Working Papres endo-one, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    5. Cooper,Russell, 1999. "Coordination Games," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521578967, September.
    6. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1991. "Increasing Returns, Industrialization, and Indeterminacy of Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 617-650.
    7. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    8. Burdett Kenneth & Imai Ryoichi & Wright Randall, 2004. "Unstable Relationships," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-44, January.
    9. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    10. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 2004. "Coordination risk and the price of debt," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 133-153, February.
    11. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    12. Oechssler, Jorg, 1997. "Decentralization and the coordination problem," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 119-135, January.
    13. Steiner, Jakub, 2008. "Coordination cycles," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 308-327, May.
    14. Itay Goldstein & Ady Pauzner, 2005. "Demand–Deposit Contracts and the Probability of Bank Runs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1293-1327, June.
    15. Frank Heinemann & Rosemarie Nagel & Peter Ockenfels, 2004. "The Theory of Global Games on Test: Experimental Analysis of Coordination Games with Public and Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1583-1599, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Flavio Toxvaerd & Chryssi Giannitsarou, 2004. "Recursive global games," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 104, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    2. Antoine Loeper & Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2014. "Influential Opinion Leaders," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(581), pages 1147-1167, December.
    3. Junichi Fujimoto, 2014. "Speculative attacks with multiple targets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(1), pages 89-132, September.
    4. Laurent Mathevet & Jakub Steiner, 2012. "Sand in the Wheels: A Dynamic Global-Game Approach," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp459, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    5. Peter R. Mueser & David Mandy & Eric Parsons, 2011. "Population Movements in the Presence of Agglomeration and Congestion Effects: Local Policy and the Social Optimum," Working Papers 1123, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    6. Steiner, Jakub, 2008. "Coordination of mobile labor," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 25-46, March.
    7. Araujo, Luis & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2015. "Intertemporal coordination with delay options," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 793-810.
    8. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padró I Miquel, 2010. "Conflict and Deterrence Under Strategic Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1821-1858.
    9. Dasgupta, Amil, 2007. "Coordination and delay in global games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 195-225, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jakub Steiner, 2006. "Coordination of Mobile Labor," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 152, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    2. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    3. Oyama, Daisuke & Tercieux, Olivier, 2009. "Iterated potential and robustness of equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1726-1769, July.
    4. Manz, Michael, 2010. "Information-based contagion and the implications for financial fragility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 900-910, October.
    5. Szkup, Michal, 2020. "Multiplier effect and comparative statics in global games of regime change," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(2), May.
    6. Bernardo Guimaraes & Caio Machado & Ana E. Pereira, 2020. "Dynamic coordination with timing frictions: Theory and applications," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 656-697, June.
    7. Dasgupta, Amil, 2007. "Coordination and delay in global games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 195-225, May.
    8. Anctil, Regina M. & Dickhaut, John & Johnson, Cathleen & Kanodia, Chandra, 2010. "Does information transparency decrease coordination failure?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 228-241, November.
    9. Chen, Qi & Goldstein, Itay & Jiang, Wei, 2010. "Payoff complementarities and financial fragility: Evidence from mutual fund outflows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 239-262, August.
    10. , & , & ,, 2008. "Monotone methods for equilibrium selection under perfect foresight dynamics," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), June.
    11. Kasahara, Tetsuya, 2009. "Coordination failure among multiple lenders and the role and effects of public policy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 183-198, June.
    12. Olga Shurchkov, 2013. "Coordination and learning in dynamic global games: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 313-334, September.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, 2015. "History, Expectations, and Leadership in the Evolution of Social Norms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 423-456.
    14. Laurent Mathevet, 2010. "A contraction principle for finite global games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 42(3), pages 539-563, March.
    15. Besancenot, Damien & Vranceanu, Radu, 2014. "Experimental evidence on the ‘insidious’ illiquidity risk," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 315-323.
    16. Kováč, Eugen & Steiner, Jakub, 2013. "Reversibility in dynamic coordination problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 298-320.
    17. Naqvi, Hassan, 2015. "Banking crises and the lender of last resort: How crucial is the role of information?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 20-29.
    18. Külpmann, Philipp & Khantadze, Davit, 2016. "Identifying the reasons for coordination failure in a laboratory experiment," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 567, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    19. Xavier Vives, 2014. "Strategic Complementarity, Fragility, and Regulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(12), pages 3547-3592.
    20. Toni Ahnert & Christoph Bertsch, 2022. "A Wake-Up Call Theory of Contagion [Asymmetric business cycles: theory and time-series evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 829-854.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:139:y:2008:i:1:p:25-46. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.