This paper develops an economic argument relating auctions to high market prices. At the core of the argument is the claim that market competition and bidding in an auction should be analyzed as part of one game, where the pricing strategies in the market subgame depend on the bidding strategies...

This paper assumes that groups of consumers in network markets can coordinate their choices when it is in their best interest to do so, and when coordination does not require communication. It is shown that multiple asymmetric networks can coexist in equilibrium if consumers have heterogeneous...

This paper explores three aspects of strategic uncertainty: its relation to risk, predictability of behavior and subjective beliefs of players. In a laboratory experiment we measure subjects? certainty equivalents for three coordination games and one lottery. Behavior in coordination games is...

Games like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot occasionally produce natural experiments in social science: situations that, through no intent of the designer, offer controlled variations on a phenomenon of theoretical interest. This paper examines two examples, both of which involve the theory of...

Tuning one's shower in some hotels may turn into a challenging coordination game with imperfect information. The temperature sensitivity increases with the number of agents, making the problem possibly unlearnable. Because there is in practice a finite number of possible tap positions, identical...

This paper examines the ability of a policy maker to control equilibrium outcomes in a global coordination game; applications include currency attacks, bank runs, and debt crises. A unique equilibrium is known to survive when the policy is exogenously fixed. We show that, by conveying...

This paper studies the effect of endogenous group formation on the outcome in two types of coordination games with multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria. Endogenous group formation means that in each period players are free to choose among two or more groups within which they want to play the...

This paper analyzes an urn-ball matching model in which workers decide how intensively they sample job openings and apply at a stochastic number of suitable vacancies. Equilibrium is not constrained efficient; entry is excessive and search intensity can be too high or too low. Moreover, an...

This paper examines whether commercial radio stations try to play their commercials at the same time. A simple model shows that stations may want to choose the same times (coordination) or different times (differentiation) depending on how listeners behave. It also shows that how much...