Tacit Coordination in Games with Third-Party Externalities

James Bland and Nikos Nikiforakis ()

No 2013_19, Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods from Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Abstract: When agents face coordination problems their choices often impose externalities on third parties. We investigate whether such externalities can affect equilibrium selection in a series of one-shot coordination games varying the size and the sign of the externality. We fi?nd that third-party externalities have a limited effect on decisions. A large majority of participants in the experiment are willing to take an action that increases their income slightly, even if doing so causes substantial inequalities and reductions in overall efficiency. Individuals revealed to be other-regarding in a non-strategic allocation task often behave as-if sel?fish when trying to coordinate.

Keywords: social preferences; efficiency; externalities; tacit coordination; equilibrium selection; efficiency. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D01 D03 D62 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-net
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2013_19

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