Experiments on Equilibrium Selection in Coordination Games (REU Supplement)

实验室实验，如本项目的实验，检验和丰富了经济学理论。本项目使用实验室实验来检验协调博弈中的均衡选择问题。这些博弈的特点是存在多个可排序的均衡。在这些博弈中，当所有参与者在一个均衡中相对于另一个均衡更富有，但可能无法明确协调他们的策略以实现首选结果时，就会发生协调失败。该项目探讨了协调失败是否会出现，并提供了增加这种失败可能性的因素的特征。它考察了不同机制的能力，如沟通和游戏前体验，以减轻这些失败。该项目还通过考察产品市场中的双重道德风险问题来考虑协调博弈的经济应用。经济理论表明，协调失败可能是宏观经济不稳定和微观经济市场不完善的主要因素。这个项目将提供一些在受控的实验室环境中协调失败的存在和意义的第一个经验证据。这个项目在方法论上也很重要，因为它测试了广泛使用的博弈论概念，如游戏前交流机制。初步结果表明，一种看似合理的游戏前交流机制未能通过实验室实验测试。

Laboratory experiments, such as the experiments in this project, test and enrich economic theory. This project uses laboratory experiments to examine questions of equilibrium selection in coordination games. These games are characterized by the existence of multiple equilibria which are rankable. In these games, coordination failures occur when all players are better off in one equilibrium relative to another yet may be unable to explicitly coordinate their strategies to achieve the preferred outcome. The project explores whether coordination failures arise and provides a characterization of the factors which increase the likelihood of such failures. It examines the ability of different mechanisms, e.g., communication and pre-play experience, to attenuate these failures. The project also considers an economic application of a coordination game by examining a double moral hazard problem in product markets. Economic theory suggests that coordination failure could be a major factor in macroeconomic instability and microeconomic market imperfections. This project will provide some of the first empirical evidence of the existence and significance of coordination failures in a controlled laboratory environment. This project is also methodologically important because it tests widely used game-theoretic concepts such as mechanisms for pre- play communication. Preliminary results suggest that a plausible pre-play communication mechanism fails laboratory experimental tests.