IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hom/homoec/v22y2005p147-168.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conventions: Some Conventional and Some Not So Conventional Wisdom

Author

Listed:
  • Siegfried Berninghaus

    (Department of Economics, University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany)

  • Werner G³th

    (Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems, Jena, Germany)

  • Hartmut Kliemt

    (Department of Philosophy, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany)

Abstract

Problems of social coordination can be formalized as non-cooperative games with several equilibria. We know that in such situations serious problems of equilibrium selection arise which cannot be solved by traditional game theoretical reasoning. Conventions seem to be a powerful tool to solve equilibrium selection problems in real world societies. Essentially, two questions will be addressed in this paper: (a) Which conventions will emerge in a society? (b) How can a society break away from an inferior and reach a superior convention? It turns out that ôrisk dominanceö of a convention plays a crucial role in dealing with both questions and generally in the evolution of conventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Siegfried Berninghaus & Werner G³th & Hartmut Kliemt, 2005. "Conventions: Some Conventional and Some Not So Conventional Wisdom," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 22, pages 147-168.
    • Handle: RePEc:hom:homoec:v:22:y:2005:p:147-168
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, December.
    2. Cooper, Russell & De Jong, Douglas V. & Forsythe, Robert & Ross, Thomas W., 1992. "Forward induction in coordination games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 167-172, October.
    3. Boyer, Robert & Orlean, Andre, 1992. "How Do Conventions Evolve?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 165-177, October.
    4. Berninghaus, Siegfried K. & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin & Keser, Claudia, 2002. "Conventions and Local Interaction Structures: Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 177-205, May.
    5. Ulrich Schwalbe & Siegfried K. Berninghaus, 1996. "Conventions, local interaction, and automata networks," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 297-312.
    6. Ken Binmore, 1994. "Game Theory and the Social Contract, Volume 1: Playing Fair," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262023636, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Siegfried K. Berninghaus & Karl-Martin Ehrhart & Claudia Keser, 2000. "Conventions and Local Interaction Structures: Experimental Evidence," CIRANO Working Papers 2000s-36, CIRANO.
    2. Berninghaus, Siegfried K. & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin & Keser, Claudia, 2002. "Conventions and Local Interaction Structures: Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 177-205, May.
    3. Cassar, Alessandra, 2007. "Coordination and cooperation in local, random and small world networks: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 209-230, February.
    4. Vincent Buskens & Chris Snijders, 2016. "Effects of Network Characteristics on Reaching the Payoff-Dominant Equilibrium in Coordination Games: A Simulation study," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 477-494, December.
    5. Banerjee, Simanti & Kwasnica, Anthony M. & Shortle, James S., 2012. "Agglomeration bonus in small and large local networks: A laboratory examination of spatial coordination," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 142-152.
    6. Dieter Balkenborg & Rosemarie Nagel, 2016. "An Experiment on Forward vs. Backward Induction: How Fairness and Level k Reasoning Matter," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 17(3), pages 378-408, August.
    7. Siegfried K. Berninghaus & Lora R. Todorova & Bodo Vogt, 2012. "How Sensitive is Strategy Selection in Coordination Games?," FEMM Working Papers 120020, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    8. Hendrik Vollmer, 2013. "What kind of game is everyday interaction?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 25(3), pages 370-404, August.
    9. Thijssen, J.J.J., 2003. "Investment under uncertainty, market evolution and coalition spillovers in a game theoretic perspective," Other publications TiSEM 672073a6-492e-4621-8d4a-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Frey Vincenz & Corten Rense & Buskens Vincent, 2012. "Equilibrium Selection in Network Coordination Games: An Experimental Study," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-28, September.
    11. Amegashie, J. Atsu & Cadsby, C. Bram & Song, Yang, 2007. "Competitive burnout: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 213-239, May.
    12. Robert Sugden, 2002. "The evolutionary turn in game theory," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 113-130.
    13. Zhang, Yang & Du, Xiaomin, 2017. "Network effects on strategic interactions: A laboratory approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 133-146.
    14. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2021. "Free Neighborhood Choice Boosts Socially Optimal Outcomes in Stag-Hunt Coordination Problem," CESifo Working Paper Series 9012, CESifo.
    15. Keser, Claudia & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin & Berninghaus, Siegfried K., 1998. "Coordination and local interaction: experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 269-275, March.
    16. Ben Cooper & Chris Wallace, 2000. "The Evolution of Partnerships," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 28(3), pages 365-381, February.
    17. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Hopfensitz, Astrid & Lorini, Emiliano & Moisan, Frédéric, 2016. "Social connectedness improves co-ordination on individually costly, efficient outcomes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 86-106.
    18. Banerjee, Simanti & Cason, Timothy N. & de Vries, Frans P. & Hanley, Nick, 2017. "Transaction costs, communication and spatial coordination in Payment for Ecosystem Services Schemes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 68-89.
    19. Colman, Andrew M. & Stirk, Jonathan A., 1998. "Stackelberg reasoning in mixed-motive games: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 279-293, April.
    20. H. Peyton Young, 2007. "Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 307, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:hom:homoec:v:22:y:2005:p:147-168. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sohamde.html .

    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.