We analyze a coordination game characterised by varying degrees of conflict of interest, incentive to coordinate and information asymmetry. The primary objective is to question whether endogenous leadership better enables coordination. A secondary objective is to question whether preference and...

Many charities report donations using categories. We question whether such category reporting increases donations in a signalling game where a donor is either generous or not generous. Conditions are derived under which category reporting will increase giving or decrease giving. Category...

We investigate, experimentally, the effects of leadership in a four player weak-link game. A weak-link game is a coordination game with multiple Pareto-ranked Nash equilibria. Because the more efficient equilibria involve a degree of strategic uncertainty groups typically find it difficult to...

In this paper we analyse the effect that naïve agents (those who take behavior at 'face value') have on the nature of social norms. After reviewing the use of signalling models to model conformity, we argue in favour of modelling naïve inferences in tandem with standard Bayes rational...

We investigate experimentally whether the endowment of potential contributors changes the success rate of providing threshold public goods. We find a U shaped relationship in which the success rate is relatively high when the endowment is either relatively small or large. We also find an...

An individual's contribution to a public good may be seen by others as a signal of attributes such as generosity or wealth. An individual may, therefore, choose their contribution so as to send an appropriate signal to others. In this paper we question how the inferences made by others will...

In the literature of psychology and economics it is frequently observed that individuals tend to conform in their behavior to that of similar individuals. A fundamental question is whether the outcome of such conformity can be consistent with self-interest. We propose that this consistency...

We introduce a framework of noncooperative pregames, in which players are characterized by their attributes, and demonstrate that for all games with sufficiently many players, there exist approximate (e )Nash equilibria in pure strategies. In fact, every mixed strategy equilibrium can be used to...

We contrast and compare three ways of predicting efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game. The three alternatives are based on ordinal potential, quantal response and impulse balance theory. We report an experiment designed to test the respective predictions and find that...

A simple expression is derived for the optimal strategy in the minimum effort game. This maps from player beliefs to an optimal effort level. From this expression the set of Nash equilibria in the game is fully characterized. All Nash equilibria are symmetric and involve at most two actions...