Group behaviour in tacit coordination games with focal points – an experimental investigation

Sitzia, Stefania and Zheng, Jiwei (2019) Group behaviour in tacit coordination games with focal points – an experimental investigation. Games and Economic Behavior, 117. pp. 461-478. ISSN 0899-8256

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Abstract

This paper reports an experimental investigation of Schelling’s theory of focal points that compares group and individual behaviour. We find that, when players’ interests are perfectly aligned, groups more often choose the salient option and achieve higher coordination success than individuals. However, in games with conflicts of interest, groups do not always perform better than individuals, especially when the degree of conflict is substantial. We also find that groups outperform individuals when identifying the solution to the coordination problem requires some level of cognitive sophistication. Finally, players that successfully identify the solution to this game also achieve greater coordination rates than other players in games with a low degree of conflict. This result raises the question of whether finding the focal point is more a matter of logic rather than imagination as Schelling argued.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	groups,coordination,payoff-irrelevant cues,cognition,economics and econometrics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2002
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2019 14:30
Last Modified:	20 Apr 2023 08:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/71907
DOI:	10.1016/j.geb.2019.08.001

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