Connected Coordination: Network Structure and Group Coordination

Authors

Mathew D. McCubbins, Duke Law SchoolFollow
Ramamohan Paturi
Nicholas Weller

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2009

Keywords

networks, network connections, coordination

Abstract

Networks can affect a group’s ability to solve a coordination problem. We utilize laboratory experiments to study the conditions under which groups of subjects can solve coordination games. We investigate a variety of different network structures, and we also investigate coordination games with symmetric and asymmetric payoffs. Our results show that network connections facilitate coordination in both symmetric and asymmetric games. Most significantly, we find that increases in the number of network connections encourage coordination even when payoffs are highly asymmetric. These results shed light on the conditions that may facilitate coordination in real-world networks.

Comments

This is an article pre-print.

Citation

Mathew D. McCubbins et al., Connected Coordination: Network Structure and Group Coordination, 37 American Politics Research 899-920 (2009)