Overcoming coordination failure in games with focal points: An experimental investigation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arjona, David Rojo; Sitzia, Stefania; Zheng, Jiwei
• 署名单位: University of Leicester; University of East Anglia; University of East Anglia; Lancaster University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.10.010
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 505-523
• 关键词: Coordination games; Focal points; SALIENCE; Conflict of interest; Battle-of-the-sexes

摘要

We experimentally test whether increasing the salience of payoff-irrelevant focal points (Schelling, 1960) can counteract the negative impact of conflicts of interest on coordination. The intuition is that, in the presence of conflict, the solution to the coordination dilemma offered by the focal point loses importance. Increasing its salience increases its relevance and, therefore, coordination success. When we vary label salience between subjects, we find support for this conjecture in games with a constant degree of conflict, similar to battle of the sexes games, but not in games that feature outcomes with different degrees of payoff inequality and efficiency. In an additional experiment in which we vary label salience within subjects, choices are found not to be affected by our salience manipulation. Yet, the proportion of choices consistent with the focal point is significantly greater than that in the between-subject design.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).