[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cie/wpaper/0301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Government Policy and the Probability of Coordination Failures

Author

Listed:
  • Huberto M. Ennis

    (Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

  • Todd Keister

    (Centro de Investigacion Economica (CIE), Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM))

Abstract
This paper introduces an approach to the study of optimal government policy in economies characterized by a coordination problem and multiple equilibria. Such models are often criticized as not being useful for policy analysis because they fail to assign a unique prediction to each possible policy choice. We employ a selection mechanism that assigns, ex ante, a probability to each equilibrium indicating how likely it is to obtain. We show how such a mechanism can be derived as the natural result of an adaptive learning process. This approach leads to a well-defined optimal policy problem, and has important implications for the conduct of government policy. We illustrate these implications using a simple model of technology adoption under network externalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2003. "Government Policy and the Probability of Coordination Failures," Working Papers 0301, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    • Handle: RePEc:cie:wpaper:0301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftp.itam.mx/pub/academico/inves/keister/03-01.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2003
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, April.
    2. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    3. Cooper,Russell, 1999. "Coordination Games," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521578967.
    4. Evans, George W., 1989. "The fragility of sunspots and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 297-317, March.
    5. Marcet, Albert & Sargent, Thomas J., 1989. "Convergence of least squares learning mechanisms in self-referential linear stochastic models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 337-368, August.
    6. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    7. Matsui Akihiko & Matsuyama Kiminori, 1995. "An Approach to Equilibrium Selection," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 415-434, April.
    8. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818728, September.
    9. Nyarko, Yaw, 1991. "Learning in mis-specified models and the possibility of cycles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 416-427, December.
    10. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    11. Blume, L. E. & Bray, M. M. & Easley, D., 1982. "Introduction to the stability of rational expectations equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 313-317, April.
    12. Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2003. "Aggregate demand management with multiple equilibria," Working Paper 03-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    13. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1986. "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 822-841, August.
    14. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524131, September.
    15. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1986. "Adaptive Behavior and Economic Theory," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 401-426, October.
    16. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    17. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    18. Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo & Honkapohja, Seppo, 1994. "Learning, convergence, and stability with multiple rational expectations equilibria," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 1071-1098, May.
    19. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Learning to Believe in Sunspots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 277-307, March.
    20. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    21. Harold L. Cole & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2000. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 91-116.
    22. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818742, September.
    23. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    24. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524117, September.
    25. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2003. "Economic growth, liquidity, and bank runs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 220-245, April.
    26. Howitt, Peter & McAfee, R Preston, 1992. "Animal Spirits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 493-507, June.
    27. James Peck & Karl Shell, 2003. "Equilibrium Bank Runs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(1), pages 103-123, February.
    28. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818735, September.
    29. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524124, September.
    30. Evans, George W & Honkapohja, Seppo, 1992. "On the Robustness of Bubbles in Linear RE Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 33(1), pages 1-14, February.
    31. John B. Van Huyck & Raymond C. Battalio & Richard O. Beil, 1991. "Strategic Uncertainty, Equilibrium Selection, and Coordination Failure in Average Opinion Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 885-910.
    32. Lawrence Blume & David Easley, 1993. "Rational Expectations and Rational Learning," Game Theory and Information 9307003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    33. Mathias Dewatripont & Lars Peter Hansen & Stephen Turnovsky, 2003. "Advances in economics and econometrics :theory and applications," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9557, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2009. "Bank Runs and Institutions: The Perils of Intervention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1588-1607, September.
    2. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2003. "Economic growth, liquidity, and bank runs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 220-245, April.
    3. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2006. "Bank runs and investment decisions revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 217-232, March.
    4. Giese, Julia & Nelson, Benjamin & Tanaka, Misa & Tarashev, Nikola, 2013. "Financial Stability Paper No 21: How could macroprudential policy affect financial system resilience and credit? Lessons from the literature," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 21, Bank of England.
    5. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2004. "Monetary Discretion, Pricing Complementarity, and Dynamic Multiple Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1513-1553.
    6. Bernardo Guimaraes & Gabriel Jardanovski, 2022. "Who matters in dynamic coordination problems?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(3), pages 452-469, June.
    7. Huberto M. Ennis, 2003. "Economic fundamentals and bank runs," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 89(Spr), pages 55-71.
    8. Marco Bassetto & Christopher Phelan, 2008. "Tax Riots," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 649-669.
    9. Carli, Francesco & Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro, 2021. "Real consequences of open market operations: The role of limited commitment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    10. Todd Keister, 2009. "Expectations And Contagion In Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(3), pages 991-1012, August.
    11. Dhital, Saroj & Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro & Haslag, Joseph H., 2021. "Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a frictional model of fiat money, nominal public debt and banking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    12. Bernardo Guimaraes & Caio Machado & Ana E. Pereira, 2020. "Dynamic coordination with timing frictions: Theory and applications," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 656-697, June.
    13. Sanchez Villalba, Miguel, 2015. "Global inspection games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 59-72.
    14. Huberto M. Ennis, 2005. "Complementariedades y Política Macroeconómica," IIE, Working Papers 054, IIE, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    15. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Optimal fiscal policy under multiple equilibria," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1359-1377, November.
    16. Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2003. "Aggregate demand management with multiple equilibria," Working Paper 03-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    17. James Peck & Abolfazi Setayesh, 2023. "Bank Runs and the Optimality of Limited Banking," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 100-110, January.
    18. Fecht, Falko & Eder, Armin & Pausch, Thilo, 2013. "Banks, Markets, and Financial Stability," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79712, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Diemo Dietrich & Uwe Vollmer, 2024. "Investment externalities, bank liquidity creation, and bank failures," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 137-162, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2001. "Optimal policy with probabilistic equilibrium selection," Working Paper 01-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    2. Claudia Cerrone & Francesco Feri & Philip R. Neary, 2019. "Ignorance is bliss: a game of regret," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2019_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. George-Marios Angeletos & Christian Hellwig & Alessandro Pavan, 2006. "Signaling in a Global Game: Coordination and Policy Traps," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 452-484, June.
    4. Kets, Willemien & Kager, Wouter & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2022. "The value of a coordination game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Optimal fiscal policy under multiple equilibria," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1359-1377, November.
    6. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    7. Goldstein, Itay & Razin, Assaf, 2015. "Three Branches of Theories of Financial Crises," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 10(2), pages 113-180, 30.
    8. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Pereira, Ana Elisa, 2017. "Dynamic coordination among heterogeneous agents," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 13-33.
    9. Andersson, Ola & Argenton, Cédric & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2014. "Robustness to strategic uncertainty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 272-288.
    10. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Itay Goldstein, 2011. "Self-fulfilling Credit Market Freezes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3519-3555.
    11. Li Mei, 2012. "Coordination Failure in Investment, Economic Growth, and Volatility," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-33, March.
    12. Yoo, Seung Han, 2014. "Learning a population distribution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 188-201.
    13. Kasahara, Tetsuya, 2009. "Coordination failure among multiple lenders and the role and effects of public policy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 183-198, June.
    14. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Machado, Caio, 2013. "Demand expectations and the timing of stimulus policies," MPRA Paper 48895, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Assaf Razin & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "Review Of Theories of Financial Crises," 2012 Meeting Papers 214, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. David P. Myatt & Chris Wallace, 2005. "The Evolution of Teams," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Natalie Gold (ed.), Teamwork, chapter 4, pages 78-101, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Tsalavoutas, Ioannis, 2016. "Investor mood, herding and the Ramadan effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(S), pages 23-38.
    18. Ponti, Giovanni & Carbone, Enrica, 2009. "Positional learning with noise," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 225-241, December.
    19. George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La'O, 2011. "Decentralization, Communication, and the Origins of Fluctuations," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000111, David K. Levine.
    20. Morris, Stephen, 2014. "Coordination, timing and common knowledge," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 306-314.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cie:wpaper:0301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Diego Dominguez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciitamx.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.