IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2000-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Transfer, Focality and Coordination: Some Experimental Results

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanna Devetag

Abstract

In this paper we test the degree of tranfer of learning between two similar, n-player coordination games with Pareto-ranked equilibria with fixed cohorts. Our results show that achieve the payoff-dominants equilibrium in one game are then able to transfer this mutual best response outcome to the new game. However, cohorts which do not converge to the best outcome in the first game are not able to recover from coordination failure in the new game. Furthermore, the effects of tranfer on collective coordination change depending on the sequence with which the two games are played.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanna Devetag, 2000. "Transfer, Focality and Coordination: Some Experimental Results," LEM Papers Series 2000/02, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2000/02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2000-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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, April.
    2. Jack Ochs, 1990. "The Coordination Problem in Decentralized Markets: An Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 545-559.
    3. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    4. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    5. Straub, Paul G., 1995. "Risk dominance and coordination failures in static games," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 339-363.
    6. Crawford, Vincent P., 1991. "An "evolutionary" interpretation of Van Huyck, Battalio, and Beil's experimental results on coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 25-59, February.
    7. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    8. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    9. Ho, Teck-Hua & Camerer, Colin & Weigelt, Keith, 1998. "Iterated Dominance and Iterated Best Response in Experimental "p-Beauty Contests."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 947-969, September.
    10. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    11. Bornstein, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Nagel, Rosmarie, 2002. "The effect of intergroup competition on group coordination: an experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 1-25, October.
    12. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589833, September.
    13. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2005. "An experimental study of costly coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 349-364, May.
    14. Sugden, Robert, 1995. "A Theory of Focal Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(430), pages 533-550, May.
    15. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589819, September.
    16. Meyer, Donald J & Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Saving, Thomas R, 1992. "History's Role in Coordinating Decentralized Allocation Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(2), pages 292-316, April.
    17. John B. Van Huyck & Raymond C. Battalio & Richard O. Beil, 1991. "Strategic Uncertainty, Equilibrium Selection, and Coordination Failure in Average Opinion Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 885-910.
    18. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589826, September.
    19. Daniel A. Levinthal & Massimo Warglien, 1999. "Landscape Design: Designing for Local Action in Complex Worlds," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 342-357, June.
    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. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Crawford, Vincent P & Broseta, Bruno, 2001. "Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1193-1235, September.
    2. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    3. López-Pérez, Raúl & Pintér, Ágnes & Kiss, Hubert J., 2015. "Does payoff equity facilitate coordination? A test of Schelling's conjecture," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 209-222.
    4. Maoliang Ye & Jie Zheng & Plamen Nikolov & Sam Asher, 2020. "One Step at a Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 113-129, January.
    5. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    6. Mielke, Jahel & Steudle, Gesine A., 2018. "Green Investment and Coordination Failure: An Investors' Perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 88-95.
    7. Haruvy, Ernan & Stahl, Dale O., 2007. "Equilibrium selection and bounded rationality in symmetric normal-form games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 98-119, January.
    8. Giovanna Devetag, 2000. "Coordination in "Critical Mass" Games: An Experimental Study," LEM Papers Series 2000/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Francesco Feri & Bernd Irlenbusch & Matthias Sutter, 2010. "Efficiency Gains from Team-Based Coordination—Large-Scale Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1892-1912, September.
    10. Kets, Willemien & Kager, Wouter & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2022. "The value of a coordination game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    11. Riechmann, Thomas & Weimann, Joachim, 2008. "Competition as a coordination device: Experimental evidence from a minimum effort coordination game," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 437-454, June.
    12. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2005. "An experimental study of costly coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 349-364, May.
    13. Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2016. "Disentangling Social Capital: Lab-in-the-Field Evidence on Coordination, Networks, and Cooperation," Artefactual Field Experiments 00565, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. Flavio M. Menezes & Paulo K. Monteiro & Akram Temimi, 1998. "Equilibrium Selection and the Rate of Convergence in Coordination Games with Simultaneous Play," Discussion Papers 98-14, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Omar Al-Ubaydli, 2011. "How Large Looms the Ghost of the Past? State Dependence versus Heterogeneity in Coordination Games," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 273-286, October.
    16. Choi, Syngjoo & Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar & Palfrey, Thomas, 2011. "Network architecture, salience and coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 76-90, September.
    17. Miguel A Costa-Gomes & Vincent P Crawford & Nagore Iriberri, 2008. "Comparing Models of Strategic Thinking in Van Huyck, Battalio, and Beil’s Coordination Games," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002346, David K. Levine.
    18. Fabrizio Germano, 2006. "On some geometry and equivalence classes of normal form games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 34(4), pages 561-581, November.
    19. 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.
    20. Mak, Vincent & Zwick, Rami, 2010. "Investment decisions and coordination problems in a market with network externalities: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 759-773, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    -;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ssa:lemwps:2000/02. 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/labssit.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.