Strategic interaction and conventions
Identificadores
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10481/31566Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemEditorial
Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Teoría e Historia Económica
Materia
Behavioral game theory Conventions Social norms
Fecha
2010Referencia bibliográfica
Espinosa, M.P.; Kovárik, J.; Ponti, G. Strategic interaction and conventions. Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Teoría e Historia Económica (2010). (The Papers; 10/09). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/31566]
Resumen
The scope of the paper is to review the literature that employs coordination games to study social norms and conventions from the viewpoint of game theory and cognitive psychology. We claim that those two alternative approaches are complementary, as they provide different insights to explain how people converge to a unique system of self-fulfilling expectations in presence of multiple, equally viable, conventions. While game theory explains the emergence of conventions relying on efficiency and risk considerations, the psychological view is more concerned with frame and labeling effects. The interaction between these alternative (and, sometimes, competing) effects leads to the result that coordination failures may well occur and, even when coordination takes place, there is no guarantee that the convention eventually established will be the most efficient.