TY - JOUR
T1 - Network architecture, salience and coordination
AU - Choi, Syngjoo
AU - Gale, Douglas
AU - Kariv, Shachar
AU - Palfrey, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
✩ This research was supported by the Princeton Laboratory for Experimental Social Science (PLESS) and the UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory (Xlab). The paper has benefited from suggestions by the participants of seminars at several universities. We acknowledge the National Science Foundation for support under grants SBR-0095109 (Gale), SES-0617955 (Gale and Kariv), and SES-0617820 (Palfrey) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Palfrey). Kariv is grateful for the hospitality of the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Studies. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Choi), [email protected] (D. Gale), [email protected] (S. Kariv), [email protected] (T. Palfrey).
PY - 2011/9
Y1 - 2011/9
N2 - This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation of dynamic games in networks. In each period, the subjects simultaneously choose whether or not to make an irreversible contribution to the provision of an indivisible public good. Subjects observe the past actions of other subjects if and only if they are connected by the network. Networks may be incomplete so subjects are asymmetrically informed about the actions of other subjects in the same network, which is typically an obstacle to the attainment of an efficient outcome. For all networks, the game has a large set of (possibly inefficient) equilibrium outcomes. Nonetheless, the network architecture makes certain strategies salient and this in turn facilitates coordination on efficient outcomes. In particular, asymmetries in the network architecture encourage two salient behaviors, strategic delay and strategic commitment. By contrast, we find that symmetries in the network architecture can lead to mis-coordination and inefficient outcomes.
AB - This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation of dynamic games in networks. In each period, the subjects simultaneously choose whether or not to make an irreversible contribution to the provision of an indivisible public good. Subjects observe the past actions of other subjects if and only if they are connected by the network. Networks may be incomplete so subjects are asymmetrically informed about the actions of other subjects in the same network, which is typically an obstacle to the attainment of an efficient outcome. For all networks, the game has a large set of (possibly inefficient) equilibrium outcomes. Nonetheless, the network architecture makes certain strategies salient and this in turn facilitates coordination on efficient outcomes. In particular, asymmetries in the network architecture encourage two salient behaviors, strategic delay and strategic commitment. By contrast, we find that symmetries in the network architecture can lead to mis-coordination and inefficient outcomes.
KW - Coordination
KW - Experiment
KW - Monotone games
KW - Networks
KW - Strategic commitment
KW - Strategic delay
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U2 - 10.1016/j.geb.2011.01.001
DO - 10.1016/j.geb.2011.01.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79961029138
SN - 0899-8256
VL - 73
SP - 76
EP - 90
JO - Games and Economic Behavior
JF - Games and Economic Behavior
IS - 1
ER -