IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v18y2006i3p367-391.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coordination and Status Influence

Author

Listed:
  • C. Robert Clark

    (HEC Montreal, robert.clark@hec.ca)

  • Samuel Clark

    (University of Western Ontario, sclark4@uwo.ca)

  • Mattias K. Polborn

    (Economics Department at the University of Illinois, polborn@uiuc.edu)

Abstract

We develop a model to explain why the influence of higher-status individuals is often accepted even when status is not an indication of superior information or competence. We propose such acceptance as a rational strategy in cases where coordination is important. In our model agents must select from among a set of alternatives after witnessing the choices of some group of initial movers, one of whom is assumed to be of high status. These agents would like to select the better alternative, but would also like to coordinate with as many others as possible. If a high-status individual is more prominent, he or she can be used as a coordination device. We determine in what situations agents weigh the behavior of higher-status agents more heavily than that of other agents, and whether the total utility of agents is improved as a result of the existence of high-status individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • C. Robert Clark & Samuel Clark & Mattias K. Polborn, 2006. "Coordination and Status Influence," Rationality and Society, , vol. 18(3), pages 367-391, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:18:y:2006:i:3:p:367-391
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463106066379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463106066379
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463106066379?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Suk-Young Chwe, 1998. "Culture, Circles, And Commercials," Rationality and Society, , vol. 10(1), pages 47-75, February.
    2. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    3. C. Clark & Mattias Polborn, 2006. "Information and crowding externalities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 27(3), pages 565-581, April.
    4. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 1998. "Learning from Neighbours," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 595-621.
    5. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1986. "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 822-841, August.
    6. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1992. "Product Introduction with Network Externalities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 55-83, March.
    7. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    8. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, 1994. "Systems Competition and Network Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 93-115, Spring.
    9. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    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. Amanda J. Sharkey & Balázs Kovács, 2018. "The Many Gifts of Status: How Attending to Audience Reactions Drives the Use of Status," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5422-5443, November.
    2. Keuschnigg, Marc, 2015. "Product Success in Cultural Markets: The Mediating Role of Familiarity, Peers, and Experts," MPRA Paper 63444, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. A. Bassanini & G. Dosi, 1998. "Competing Technologies, International Diffusion and the Rate of Convergence to a Stable Market Structure," Working Papers ir98012, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    2. Oz Shy, 2011. "A Short Survey of Network Economics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(2), pages 119-149, March.
    3. Liangjie Zhao & Wenqi Duan, 2014. "Simulating the Evolution of Market Shares: The Effects of Customer Learning and Local Network Externalities," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 43(1), pages 53-70, January.
    4. Jullien, Bruno, 2001. "Competing with Network Externalities and Price Discrimination," CEPR Discussion Papers 2883, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Paul W.J. de Bijl & Sanjeev Goyal, 2002. "Market Integration and Technological Change," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 19-37, March.
    6. Snellman, Heli, 2006. "Automated teller machine network market structure and cash usage," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2006_038.
    7. Whitman Douglas Glen, 2002. "Legal Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-13, June.
    8. Xiong, Hang & Payne, Diane & Kinsella, Stephen, 2016. "Peer effects in the diffusion of innovations: Theory and simulation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-13.
    9. De Bijl, Paul W. J. & Goyal, Sanjeev, 1995. "Technological change in markets with network externalities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 307-325, September.
    10. Amador, Manuel & Weill, Pierre-Olivier, 2012. "Learning from private and public observations of othersʼ actions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 910-940.
    11. Matutes, Carmen & Regibeau, Pierre, 1996. "A selective review of the economics of standardization. Entry deterrence, technological progress and international competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 183-209, September.
    12. Nicholas Economides, 1997. "The Economics of Networks," Brazilian Electronic Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, vol. 1(0), December.
    13. Nicholas Economides & Lawrence J. White, 1993. "One-Way Networks, Two-Way Networks, Compatibility, and Antitrust," Working Papers 93-14, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    14. Schade, Sven & Buxmann, Peter, 2005. "A Prototype to Analyse and Support Standardization Decisions," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35795, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    15. Anna Bayona, 2018. "The social value of information with an endogenous public signal," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(4), pages 1059-1087, December.
    16. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    17. Sujoy Chakravarty, 2003. "Experimental Evidence on Product Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 23(3), pages 233-254, December.
    18. Conrad, Klaus, 2004. "Network effects, Compatibility and the Environment : The Case of Hydrogen Powered Cars," Discussion Papers 613, Institut fuer Volkswirtschaftslehre und Statistik, Abteilung fuer Volkswirtschaftslehre.
    19. Fabio Manenti & Ernesto Somma, 2008. "One-Way Compatibility, Two-Way Compatibility and Entry in Network Industries," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 301-322.
    20. Navarro, Noemí, 2012. "Price and quality decisions under network effects," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 263-270.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coordination; prominence; status;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:ratsoc:v:18:y:2006:i:3:p:367-391. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.