[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/wcbess/14-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stake size and the power of focal points in coordination games: Experimental evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Melanie Parravano

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Odile Poulsen

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract
We collect data from symmetric and asymmetric coordination games with a focal point and vary the stake size. The data show that in symmetric games coordination on the label-salient strategy increases with stake size. By contrast, in asymmetric games the coordination rates do not vary with stake size and are close to the levels predicted by both the mixed Nash equilibrium and the level-k model used by Crawford, Gneezy, and Rottenstreich (2008). These findings suggest that players’ mode of reasoning, and the extent to which it can be explained by team reasoning or a level-k model, crucially depends on the symmetry or asymmetry of the coordination payoffs.

Suggested Citation

  • Melanie Parravano & Odile Poulsen, 2014. "Stake size and the power of focal points in coordination games: Experimental evidence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 14-07, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    • Handle: RePEc:uea:wcbess:14-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/cbess/UEA-CBESS-14-07.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vincent P. Crawford & Uri Gneezy & Yuval Rottenstreich, 2008. "The Power of Focal Points Is Limited: Even Minute Payoff Asymmetry May Yield Large Coordination Failures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1443-1458, September.
    2. repec:feb:framed:0088 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    4. Rydval, Ondrej & Ortmann, Andreas, 2005. "Loss avoidance as selection principle: Evidence from simple stag-hunt games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 101-107, July.
    5. Kocher, Martin G. & Martinsson, Peter & Visser, Martine, 2008. "Does stake size matter for cooperation and punishment?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 508-511, June.
    6. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    7. Steffen Andersen & Seda Ertac & Uri Gneezy & Moshe Hoffman & John A. List, 2011. "Stakes Matter in Ultimatum Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3427-3439, December.
    8. Nick Feltovich, 2011. "The Effect of Subtracting a Constant from all Payoffs in a Hawk-Dove Game: Experimental Evidence of Loss Aversion in Strategic Behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(4), pages 814-826, April.
    9. Clark, Kenneth & Sefton, Martin, 2001. "The Sequential Prisoner's Dilemma: Evidence on Reciprocation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 51-68, January.
    10. Mehta, Judith & Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1994. "The Nature of Salience: An Experimental Investigation of Pure Coordination Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 658-673, June.
    11. Nicholas Bardsley & Judith Mehta & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2010. "Explaining Focal Points: Cognitive Hierarchy Theory "versus" Team Reasoning," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 40-79, March.
    12. Dan Ariely & Uri Gneezy & George Loewenstein & Nina Mazar, 2009. "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 451-469.
    13. Cameron, Lisa A, 1999. "Raising the Stakes in the Ultimatum Game: Experimental Evidence from Indonesia," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 47-59, January.
    14. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Isoni, Andrea & Poulsen, Anders & Sugden, Robert & Tsutsui, Kei, 2013. "Focal points in tacit bargaining problems: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 167-188.
    16. Vieider, Ferdinand M., 2012. "Moderate stake variations for risk and uncertainty, gains and losses: Methodological implications for comparative studies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 718-721.
    17. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Verhoogen, Eric & Burks, Stephen, 2005. "The effect of stakes in distribution experiments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 393-398, March.
    18. Shaun Hargreaves Heap & David Rojo Arjona & Robert Sugden, 2014. "How Portable Is Level‐0 Behavior? A Test of Level‐k Theory in Games With Non‐Neutral Frames," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1133-1151, May.
    19. Kachelmeier, Steven J & Shehata, Mohamed, 1992. "Examining Risk Preferences under High Monetary Incentives: Experimental Evidence from the People's Republic of China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1120-1141, December.
    20. Gérard P. Cachon & Colin F. Camerer, 1996. "Loss-Avoidance and Forward Induction in Experimental Coordination Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 165-194.
    21. Nick Feltovich & Atsushi Iwasaki & Sobei H. Oda, 2012. "Payoff Levels, Loss Avoidance, And Equilibrium Selection In Games With Multiple Equilibria: An Experimental Study," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 932-952, October.
    22. Marco Faillo & Alessandra Smerilli & Robert Sugden, 2013. "The roles of level-k and team reasoning in solving coordination games," CEEL Working Papers 1306, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    23. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    24. Robert Slonim & Alvin E. Roth, 1998. "Learning in High Stakes Ultimatum Games: An Experiment in the Slovak Republic," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 569-596, May.
    25. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    26. Andrea Isoni & Anders Poulsen & Robert Sugden & Kei Tsutsui, 2014. "Efficiency, Equality, and Labeling: An Experimental Investigation of Focal Points in Explicit Bargaining," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3256-3287, October.
    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. Francesco Fallucchi & Daniele Nosenzo, 2022. "The coordinating power of social norms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-25, February.
    2. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2020. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8168, CESifo.
    3. Isoni, Andrea & Poulsen, Anders & Sugden, Robert & Tsutsui, Kei, 2019. "Focal points and payoff information in tacit bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 193-214.
    4. Håkan J. Holm & Victor Nee & Sonja Opper, 2020. "Strategic decisions: behavioral differences between CEOs and others," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 154-180, March.
    5. Poulsen, Odile & Saral, Krista J., 2018. "Coordination and focality under gain–loss framing: Experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 75-78.
    6. Mamadou Gueye & Nicolas Quérou & Raphaël Soubeyran, 2018. "Does equity induce inefficiency? An experiment on coordination," Working Papers hal-02790603, HAL.
    7. Anbarcı, Nejat & Feltovich, Nick & Gürdal, Mehmet Y., 2018. "Payoff inequity reduces the effectiveness of correlated-equilibrium recommendations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 172-190.
    8. Gueye, Mamadou & Quérou, Nicolas & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2020. "Social preferences and coordination: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 26-54.
    9. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2023. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 818-832, July.
    10. David Rojo-Arjona & R. Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2020. "The More The Better! Increasing Label Saliency as a way to Increase Coordination. An Experimental Investigation," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 20-02, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    11. Thomas Demuynck & Christian Seel & Giang Tran, 2019. "Measuring Competitiveness and Cooperativeness," Working Papers ECARES 2019-12, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2018. "Group behaviour in tacit coordination games with focal points: An experimental investigation," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 17-02R, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    13. Jan Libich & Dat Thanh Nguyen, 2022. "When a compromise gets compromised by another compromise," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 678-716, December.
    14. Stefan Penczynski & Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2023. "Decomposed games, focal points, and the framing of collective and individual interests," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 20-04, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Anders Poulsen & Axel Sonntag, 2019. "Focality is Intuitive - Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Time Pressure in Coordination Games," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 19-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    16. Philipp Denter & John Morgan & Dana Sisak, 2022. "Showing Off or Laying Low? The Economics of Psych-outs," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 529-580, February.
    17. David Rojo Arjona & Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2021. "Overcoming coordination failure in games with focal points," Working Papers 335109305, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    18. Gisèle Umbhauer, 2019. "Traveler’s dilemma : how the value of the luggage influences behavior," Working Papers of BETA 2019-13, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    19. Sitzia, Stefania & Zheng, Jiwei, 2019. "Group behaviour in tacit coordination games with focal points – an experimental investigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 461-478.
    20. Rojo Arjona, David & Sitzia, Stefania & Zheng, Jiwei, 2022. "Overcoming coordination failure in games with focal points: An experimental investigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 505-523.
    21. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    22. Dong, Zhiqiang & Zhang, Yanren, 2022. "Tournaments as coordination devices: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    23. Kevin J. Boudreau, 2021. "Promoting Platform Takeoff and Self-Fulfilling Expectations: Field Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5953-5967, September.
    24. Stefan Penczynski & Stefania Sitzia & Jiwei Zheng, 2020. "Compound games, focal points, and the framing of collective and individual interests," Working Papers 305138214, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.

    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. Poulsen, Odile & Saral, Krista J., 2018. "Coordination and focality under gain–loss framing: Experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 75-78.
    2. Emin Karagözoğlu & Ümit Barış Urhan, 2017. "The Effect of Stake Size in Experimental Bargaining and Distribution Games: A Survey," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 285-325, March.
    3. Bett, Zoë & Poulsen, Anders & Poulsen, Odile, 2016. "The focality of dominated compromises in tacit coordination situations: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 29-34.
    4. Alessandro Sontuoso & Sudeep Bhatia, 2021. "A notion of prominence for games with natural‐language labels," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 283-312, January.
    5. Marco Faillo & Alessandra Smerilli & Robert Sugden, 2016. "Can a single theory explain coordination? An experiment on alternative modes of reasoning and the conditions under which they are used," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 16-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Andreas Leibbrandt & John Lynham, 2018. "Does the paradox of plenty exist? Experimental evidence on the curse of resource abundance," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 337-354, June.
    7. Elten, Jonas van & Penczynski, Stefan P., 2020. "Coordination games with asymmetric payoffs: An experimental study with intra-group communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 158-188.
    8. Larney, Andrea & Rotella, Amanda & Barclay, Pat, 2019. "Stake size effects in ultimatum game and dictator game offers: A meta-analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 61-72.
    9. Julie Novakova & Jaroslav Flegr, 2013. "How Much Is Our Fairness Worth? The Effect of Raising Stakes on Offers by Proposers and Minimum Acceptable Offers in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-9, April.
    10. Irenaeus Wolff, 2017. "Lucky Numbers in Simple Games," TWI Research Paper Series 107, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    11. Isoni, Andrea & Poulsen, Anders & Sugden, Robert & Tsutsui, Kei, 2019. "Focal points and payoff information in tacit bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 193-214.
    12. Schmidt, Robert J., 2019. "Capitalizing on the (false) consensus effect: Two tractable methods to elicit private information," Working Papers 0669, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    13. Zoe Bett & Anders Poulsen & Odile Poulsen, 2013. "How Salient is an Equal but Inefficient Outcome in a Coordination Situation? Some Experimental Evidence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 13-02-R, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    14. Faillo, Marco & Smerilli, Alessandra & Sugden, Robert, 2017. "Bounded best-response and collective-optimality reasoning in coordination games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 317-335.
    15. Bosch-Domènech, Antoni & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2013. "On the role of non-equilibrium focal points as coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 52-67.
    16. Andrea Isoni & Robert Sugden & Jiwei Zheng, 2018. "The Pizza Night Game: Efficiency, Conflict and Inequality in Tacit Bargaining Games with Focal Points," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 18-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    17. Dai, Zhixin & Zheng, Jiwei & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2024. "Theories of reasoning and focal point play with a matched non-student sample," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    19. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Mollerstrom, Johanna & Munkhammar, Sara, 2012. "Social framing effects: Preferences or beliefs?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 117-130.
    20. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Kuhn, Michael A., 2013. "Experimental methods: Extra-laboratory experiments-extending the reach of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-100.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coordination; labels; focal point; stake size; payoff asymmetry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uea:wcbess:14-07. 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: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.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.