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Coordination and transfer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

David J. Cooper  and
John Van Huyck
David J. Cooper*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
John Van Huyck
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
*
djcooper@fsu.edu
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Abstract

We study the ability of subjects to transfer principles between related coordination games. Subjects play a class of order statistic coordination games closely related to the well-known minimum (or weak-link) and median games (Van Huyck et al. in Am Econ Rev 80:234–248, 1990, Q J Econ 106(3):885–910, 1991). When subjects play a random sequence of games with differing order statistics, play is less sensitive to the order statistic than when a fixed order statistic is used throughout. This is consistent with the prediction of a simple learning model with transfer. If subjects play a series of similar stag hunt games, play converges to the payoff dominant equilibrium when a convention emerges, replicating the main result of Rankin et al. (Games Econ Behav 32:315–337, 2000). When these subjects subsequently play a random sequence of order statistic games, play is shifted towards the payoff dominant equilibrium relative to subjects without previous experience. The data is consistent with subjects absorbing a general principle, play of the payoff dominant equilibrium, and applying it in a new related setting.

Keywords

CoordinationTransferLearning

JEL classification

C90: General C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior C73: Stochastic and Dynamic Games • Evolutionary Games • Repeated Games

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 21 , Issue 3: Special Issue in Honor of John Van Huyck , September 2018 , pp. 487 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-017-9521-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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