Abstract
To understand how groups coordinate, we study infinitely repeated N-player coordination games in the context of strategic uncertainty. In a situation where players share no common language or culture, ambiguity is always present. However, finding an adequate principle for a common language is not easy: a tradeoff between simplicity and efficiency has to be made. All these points are illustrated on repeated N-player coordination games on m loci. In particular, we demonstrate how a common principle can accelerate coordination. We present very simple rules that are optimal in the space of all languages for m (number of coordination loci) from 2 to 5 and for all N, the number of players. We also show that when more memory is used in the language (strategies), players may not coordinate, whereas this is never the case when players remember only the previous period.
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Kramarz, F. Dynamic focal points in N-person coordination games. Theor Decis 40, 277–313 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00134211
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00134211