Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Mengel Friederike 
Author-Name: Romero José Gabriel 
Author-Name: Kovarik Jaromir 
Author-workplace-name: METEOR
Title: (Anti-) Coordination in Networks
Abstract: We study (anti-) coordination problems in networks in a laboratory experiment. Participants interact with their neighbours in a fixed network to play a bilateral (anti-) coordination game. Our main treatment variable is the extent to which players are heterogeneous in thenumber of connections (neighbors) they have. Other network characteristics are held constant across treatments. We find the following results. Heterogeneity in the number of connections dramatically improves the rate of succesful coordination. In addition, even though there is a multiplicity of Nash equilibria theoretically, a very sharp selection is observed empiricaly: the most connected player can impose her preferred Nash equilibrium almost always and observed Nash equilibria are such that all links are coordinated. As a second treatment variation we let agents decide endogenously on the amount of information they would like to have and find that local (endogenous) information is equally efficient in ensuring succesful coordination as full information. We provide an intuitive explanation of these facts which is supported by our data.
Keywords: microeconomics ; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 2009
Number: 041
File-URL: http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/objects/guid:a39a49ed-f38a-4227-8dc0-49178e7652bd/datastreams/ASSET1/content
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 1089699
Handle: RePEc:unm:umamet:2009041