Coordination and culture

Jean-Paul Carvalho

Economic Theory, 2017, vol. 64, issue 3, No 2, 449-475

Abstract: Abstract Culture constrains individual choice, rendering certain actions impermissible or taboo. While cultural constraints may regulate behavior within a group, they can have a pernicious effect in multicultural societies, inhibiting the emergence of unified social conventions. We analyze interactions between members of two cultural groups who are matched to play a coordination game with an arbitrary number of actions. Due to cultural constraints, miscoordination prevails despite strong incentives to coordinate behavior. In an application to identity-based conflict, exclusive ethnic and religious identities persist in poorer and more unequal societies. Occasional violation of cultural constraints can make miscoordination even more stable.

Keywords: Culture; Conflict; Coordination failure; Stochastic stability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Working Paper: Coordination and Culture (2010)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00199-016-0990-3

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