IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v1y2010i4p357-380d9706.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coordination and Cooperation Problems in Network Good Production

Author

Listed:
  • Antonie Knigge

    (Department of Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Vincent Buskens

    (Department of Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands
    Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

If actors want to reach a particular goal, they are often better off forming collaborative relations and investing together rather than investing separately. We study the coordination and cooperation problems that might hinder successful collaboration in a dynamic network setting. We develop an experiment in which coordination problems are mainly due to finding partners for collaboration, while cooperation problems arise at the investment levels of partners who have already agreed to collaborate. The results show that as costs of forming links increase, groups succeed less often in solving the coordination problem. Still, if subjects are able to solve the coordination problem, they invest in a suboptimal way in the network good. It is mostly found that if cooperation is successful in terms of investment, it is due to subjects being able to monitor how much their partners invest. Moreover, subjects deal better with the coordination and cooperation problems as they gain experience.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonie Knigge & Vincent Buskens, 2010. "Coordination and Cooperation Problems in Network Good Production," Games, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-24, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:1:y:2010:i:4:p:357-380:d:9706
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/1/4/357/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/1/4/357/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Takács, Károly & Janky, Béla, 2007. "Smiling contributions: Social control in a public goods game with network decline," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 378(1), pages 76-82.
    2. Calvo-Armengol, Antoni, 2004. "Job contact networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 191-206, March.
    3. Bramoulle, Yann & Kranton, Rachel, 2007. "Public goods in networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 478-494, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Boris van Leeuwen & Theo Offerman & Arthur Schram, 2013. "Superstars need Social Benefits: An Experiment on Network Formation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-112/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Boris van Leeuwen & Theo Offerman & Arthur Schram, 2020. "Competition for Status Creates Superstars: an Experiment on Public Good Provision and Network Formation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 666-707.
    3. Rong, Rong & Houser, Daniel, 2015. "Growing stars: A laboratory analysis of network formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 380-394.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gary Charness & Francesco Feri & Miguel A. Meléndez‐Jiménez & Matthias Sutter, 2014. "Experimental Games on Networks: Underpinnings of Behavior and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 1615-1670, September.
    2. Topa, Giorgio & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Neighborhood and Network Effects," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 561-624, Elsevier.
    3. Helsley, Robert W. & Zenou, Yves, 2014. "Social networks and interactions in cities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 426-466.
    4. Sanjeev Goyal, 2015. "Networks in Economics: A Perspective on the Literature," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1548, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Dunia López-Pintado, 2015. "Influence Networks and Public Goods," Working Papers 15.04, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    6. Michele Bernasconi & Matteo Galizzi, 2010. "Network formation in repeated interactions: experimental evidence on dynamic behaviour," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 9(2), pages 193-228, December.
    7. Dunia López-Pintado, 2017. "Influence networks and public goods," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 97-112, March.
    8. Karan N. Chadha & Ankur A. Kulkarni, 2022. "On independent cliques and linear complementarity problems," Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1036-1057, December.
    9. Arthur Schram & Boris Van Leeuwen & Theo Offerman, 2013. "Superstars Need Social Benefits: An Experiment on Network Formation," Working Papers 1306, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Jul 2013.
    10. Allouch, Nizar, 2017. "The cost of segregation in (social) networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 329-342.
    11. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan, 2010. "Social capital access and entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 821-833, December.
    12. Cabrales, Antonio & Calvó-Armengol, Antoni & Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Social interactions and spillovers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 339-360, June.
    13. Moreno Galbis, Eva & Wolff, Francois-Charles & Herault, Arnaud, 2020. "How helpful are social networks in finding a job along the economic cycle? Evidence from immigrants in France," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 12-32.
    14. Joshi, Sumit & Mahmud, Ahmed Saber, 2018. "Unilateral and multilateral sanctions: A network approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 52-65.
    15. Roland Pongou & Roberto Serrano, 2009. "A Dynamic Theory of Fidelity Networks with an Application to the Spread of HIV/AIDS," Working Papers 2009-2, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    16. Stefanie Gerke & Gregory Gutin & Sung-Ha Hwang & Philip Neary, 2019. "Public goods in networks with constraints on sharing," Papers 1905.01693, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    17. Chen, Ying-Ju & Zenou, Yves & Zhou, Junjie, 2022. "The impact of network topology and market structure on pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    18. Tolga U. Kuzubas, 2010. "Endogenous Social Networks in the Labor Market," Working Papers 2010/13, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    19. Zenou, Yves & Battu, Harminder & Mwale, MacDonald, 2003. "Do Oppositional Identities Reduce Employment for Ethnic Minorities?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3819, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Harris Selod & Yves Zenou, 2006. "City Structure, Job Search and Labour Discrimination: Theory and Policy Implications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 1057-1087, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:1:y:2010:i:4:p:357-380:d:9706. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.