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Coordination and culture

Author

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  • Jean-Paul Carvalho

    (University of California, Irvine)

Abstract

Culture constrains individual choice, rendering certain actions impermissible or taboo. While cultural constraints may regulate behavior within a group, they can have a pernicious effect in multicultural societies, inhibiting the emergence of unified social conventions. We analyze interactions between members of two cultural groups who are matched to play a coordination game with an arbitrary number of actions. Due to cultural constraints, miscoordination prevails despite strong incentives to coordinate behavior. In an application to identity-based conflict, exclusive ethnic and religious identities persist in poorer and more unequal societies. Occasional violation of cultural constraints can make miscoordination even more stable.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Paul Carvalho, 2017. "Coordination and culture," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(3), pages 449-475, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:64:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-016-0990-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-016-0990-3
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    2. Bunce, John, 2020. "Sustaining Cultural Diversity Through Cross-Cultural Competence," SocArXiv bwtvu, Center for Open Science.
    3. John A. Bunce, 2021. "Cultural diversity in unequal societies sustained through cross-cultural competence and identity valuation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    4. Filipe R. Campante & David H. Yanagizawa-Drott, 2013. "Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan," NBER Working Papers 19768, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Sebastiano Della Lena & Pietro Dindo, 2019. "On the Evolution of Norms in Strategic Environments," Working Papers 2019: 16, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Bunce, John A & McElreath, Richard, 2022. "Ethnicity and cultural dynamics," SocArXiv jr7u5, Center for Open Science.
    7. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker, 2019. "State Capacity and Demand for Identity: Evidence from Political Instability in Mali," Working Papers Series 97, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    8. Moti Michaeli & Daniel Spiro, 2017. "From Peer Pressure to Biased Norms," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 152-216, February.
    9. Arun Advani & Bryony Reich, 2015. "Melting pot or salad bowl: the formation of heterogeneous communities," IFS Working Papers W15/30, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Jean-Paul Carvalho, 2015. "Sacrifice and Sorting in Clubs," Working Papers 151604, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    11. Roberto Rozzi, 2021. "Competing Conventions with Costly Information Acquisition," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, June.
    12. Klein, Miriam & Wiens, Marcus & Schultmann, Frank, 2022. "Borderland resilience, willingness to help and trust–An empirical study of the French-German border area," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    13. Ivan Lopez Cruz & Gustavo Torrens, 2019. "The paradox of power revisited: internal and external conflict," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(2), pages 421-460, September.
    14. te Velde, Vera L., 2022. "Heterogeneous norms: Social image and social pressure when people disagree," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 319-340.
    15. Neary, Philip R., 2012. "Competing conventions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 301-328.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Culture; Conflict; Coordination failure; Stochastic stability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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