Unfolding social hierarchies

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Vega-Redondo, F
• 署名单位: Universitat d'Alacant; Universitat d'Alacant
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1006/jeth.1999.2597
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 177-203
• 关键词: Social learning; equilibrium selection; social hierarchy; coordination games

摘要

Consider a large population of finitely-lived agents organized into n different hierarchical levels. Every period, all those placed at each level are randomly matched to play a given symmetric game. Based on the resulting outcome, a rho-fraction of agents who (within their own level) attain the highest payoffs are promoted upwards. On the other hand, newcomers replacing those who die every period enter at the lowest level and choose irreversibly the strategy to be played for the rest of their life. This choice is made, with some noise, by imitating one of the strategies adopted at the highest level. In this setup, the unique long-run behavior of the system is fully characterized for the whole class of 2 x 2 coordination games and two alternative variations of the model. The results crucially depend on the key institulional parameters rho and n. In particular, it is shown that inefficient behavior prevails in the long run (even when risk-dominated) if promotion is only mildly selective-high rho-and the social system is quite hierarchical-large n. In a stylized manner, these parameter conditions may be viewed as reflecting a sort of institutional deficiency that impairs economic performance. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C72, C73, D72. (C) 2000 academic Press.