IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/27723.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patience, cognitive skill and coordination in the repeated stag hunt

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Ubaydli, Omar
  • Jones, Garett
  • Weel, Jaap

Abstract

Coordination games have become a critical tool of analysis in fields such as development and institutional economics. Understanding behavior in coordination games is an important step towards understanding the differing success of teams, firms and nations. This paper investigates the relationship between personal attributes (cognitive ability, risk-aversion, patience) and behavior and outcomes in coordination games, an issue that, to the best of our knowledge, has never been studied before. For the repeated coordination game that we consider, we find that: (1) cognitive ability has no bearing on any aspect of behavior or outcomes; (2) pairs of players who are more patient are more likely to coordinate well and earn higher payoffs; and (3) risk-aversion has no bearing on any aspect of behavior or outcomes. These results are robust to controlling for personality traits and demographic characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Jones, Garett & Weel, Jaap, 2010. "Patience, cognitive skill and coordination in the repeated stag hunt," MPRA Paper 27723, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:27723
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/27723/1/MPRA_paper_27723.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, December.
    2. Jordi Brandts & David Cooper & Enrique Fatas, 2007. "Leadership and overcoming coordination failure with asymmetric costs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 269-284, September.
    3. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2010. "Are Risk Aversion and Impatience Related to Cognitive Ability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1238-1260, June.
    4. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    5. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    6. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    7. Schmidt, David & Shupp, Robert & Walker, James M. & Ostrom, Elinor, 2003. "Playing safe in coordination games:: the roles of risk dominance, payoff dominance, and history of play," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 281-299, February.
    8. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    9. Young, H Peyton, 1993. "The Evolution of Conventions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 57-84, January.
    10. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    11. Steffen Andersen & Glenn Harrison & Morten Lau & E. Rutström, 2009. "Elicitation using multiple price list formats," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(3), pages 365-366, September.
    12. Jordi Brandts & David J. Cooper, 2006. "A Change Would Do You Good .... An Experimental Study on How to Overcome Coordination Failure in Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 669-693, June.
    13. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    14. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    15. Victor R. Fuchs, 1982. "Time Preference and Health: An Exploratory Study," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 93-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Giovanna Devetag, 2003. "Coordination and Information in Critical Mass Games: An Experimental Study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 53-73, June.
    17. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & Melonie B. Williams, 2002. "Estimating Individual Discount Rates in Denmark: A Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1606-1617, December.
    18. Roberto A. Weber, 2006. "Managing Growth to Achieve Efficient Coordination in Large Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 114-126, March.
    19. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    20. Wilcox, Nathaniel T., 2011. "'Stochastically more risk averse:' A contextual theory of stochastic discrete choice under risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 162(1), pages 89-104, May.
    21. Roberto Weber & Colin Camerer & Yuval Rottenstreich & Marc Knez, 2001. "The Illusion of Leadership: Misattribution of Cause in Coordination Games," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(5), pages 582-598, October.
    22. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    23. Burks, Stephen V. & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Götte, Lorenz & Rustichini, Aldo, 2008. "Cognitive Skills Explain Economic Preferences, Strategic Behavior, and Job Attachment," IZA Discussion Papers 3609, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    24. Steffen Andersen & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2008. "Eliciting Risk and Time Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 583-618, May.
    25. John D. Hey & Chris Orme, 2018. "Investigating Generalizations Of Expected Utility Theory Using Experimental Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 3, pages 63-98, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    26. Russell Cooper & Douglas V. DeJong & Robert Forsythe & Thomas W. Ross, 1992. "Communication in Coordination Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 739-771.
    27. Steffen Anderson & Glenn Harrison & Morten Lau & Rutstrom Elisabet, 2007. "Valuation using multiple price list formats," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 675-682.
    28. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    29. Berninghaus, Siegfried K. & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin, 1998. "Time horizon and equilibrium selection in tacit coordination games: Experimental results," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 231-248, October.
    30. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    31. Daniel J. Benjamin & Sebastian A. Brown & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2013. "Who Is ‘Behavioral’? Cognitive Ability And Anomalous Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(6), pages 1231-1255, December.
    32. Blume, Andreas & Ortmann, Andreas, 2007. "The effects of costless pre-play communication: Experimental evidence from games with Pareto-ranked equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 274-290, January.
    33. Lawrance, Emily C, 1991. "Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 54-77, February.
    34. Gregory Clark, 2007. "Introduction to A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Introductory Chapters, in: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press.
    35. Omar Al-Ubaydli, 2009. "How Large Looms the Ghost of the Past? State-Dependence vs. Heterogeneity in the Stag Hunt," Working Papers 1010, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    36. Rankin, Frederick W. & Van Huyck, John B. & Battalio, Raymond C., 2000. "Strategic Similarity and Emergent Conventions: Evidence from Similar Stag Hunt Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 315-337, August.
    37. John B. Van Huyck & Raymond C. Battalio & Richard O. Beil, 1991. "Strategic Uncertainty, Equilibrium Selection, and Coordination Failure in Average Opinion Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 885-910.
    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. Douglas Davis & Asen Ivanov & Oleg Korenok, 2016. "Individual characteristics and behavior in repeated games: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 67-99, March.
    2. Friedel Bolle & Philipp E. Otto, 2022. "The flip side of power," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 75-92, January.
    3. Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Jones, Garett & Weel, Jaap, 2016. "Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 50-60.
    4. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2016. "Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1619-1676.
    5. Jörg Spiller & Friedel Bolle, 2017. "Experimental investigations of coordination games: high success rates, invariant behavior, and surprising dynamics," Discussion Paper Series RECAP15 28, RECAP15, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder).
    6. Spiller, Jörg & Bolle, Friedel, 2017. "Experimental investigations of binary threshold public good games," Discussion Papers 393, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    7. Nobuyuki Hanaki & Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2016. "Fluid intelligence and cognitive reflection in a strategic environment: evidence from dominance-solvable games," Post-Print hal-01359231, HAL.
    8. Bolle, Friedel & Spiller, Jörg, 2016. "Not efficient but payoff dominant: Experimental investigations of equilibrium play in binary threshold public good games," Discussion Papers 379, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    9. Bolle, Friedel, 2017. "A behavioral theory of equilibrium selection," Discussion Papers 392, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    10. Büyükboyacı, Mürüvvet, 2014. "Risk attitudes and the stag-hunt game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 323-325.
    11. Desiree A. Desierto, 2012. "Reforming Institutions and Building Trust To Achieve Sustained Economic Development," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201218, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    12. Antonio M. Espin & Francisco Reyes-Pereira & Luis F. Ciria, 2017. "Organizations should know their people: A behavioral economics approach," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 1(S), pages 41-48, November.
    13. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2012. "Cognitive ability and learning to play equilibrium: A level-k analysis," MPRA Paper 38317, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Apr 2012.

    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. Maoliang Ye & Jie Zheng & Plamen Nikolov & Sam Asher, 2020. "One Step at a Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 113-129, January.
    2. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    3. Omar Al-Ubaydli, 2011. "How Large Looms the Ghost of the Past? State Dependence versus Heterogeneity in Coordination Games," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 273-286, October.
    4. Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2016. "Disentangling Social Capital: Lab-in-the-Field Evidence on Coordination, Networks, and Cooperation," Artefactual Field Experiments 00565, The Field Experiments Website.
    5. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2016. "Efficient Coordination in Weakest-Link Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 737-767.
    6. Francesco Feri & Bernd Irlenbusch & Matthias Sutter, 2010. "Efficiency Gains from Team-Based Coordination—Large-Scale Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1892-1912, September.
    7. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Rodolfo M. Nayga, 2015. "Do risk and time preferences have biological roots?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 235-256, July.
    8. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2014. "Imitation and the role of information in overcoming coordination failures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 397-411.
    9. Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Jones, Garett & Weel, Jaap, 2016. "Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 50-60.
    10. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2020. "Robust inference in risk elicitation tasks," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 195-209, December.
    11. Manja Gärtner & Robert Östling & Sebastian Tebbe, 2023. "Do we all coordinate in the long run?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(1), pages 16-33, June.
    12. Cason, Timothy N. & Savikhin, Anya C. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2012. "Behavioral spillovers in coordination games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 233-245.
    13. Dietmar Fehr, 2011. "The Persistence of "Bad" Precedents and the Need for Communication: A Coordination Experiment," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2011-039, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    14. Yoshio Kamijo & Hiroki Ozono & Kazumi Shimizu, 2014. "A Mechanism That Overcomes Coordination Failure Based on Gradualism, Endogeneity, and Modification," Working Papers 1401, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    15. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Mata-Pérez, Esther & Ponti, Giovanni & Sartarelli, Marcello & Yu, Haihan & Zhukova, Vita, 2016. "Cognitive (ir)reflection: New experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 81-93.
    16. Kriss, Peter H. & Blume, Andreas & Weber, Roberto A., 2016. "Coordination with decentralized costly communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 225-241.
    17. Lu Dong & Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov, 2018. "Communication, leadership and coordination failure," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 557-584, June.
    18. Dietrichson, Jens & Jochem, Torsten, 2014. "Organizational coordination and costly communication with boundedly rational agents," Comparative Institutional Analysis Working Paper Series 2014:1, Lund University, Comparative Institutional Analysis, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Romero, Julian, 2015. "The effect of hysteresis on equilibrium selection in coordination games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 88-105.
    20. Corazzini, Luca & Cotton, Christopher & Valbonesi, Paola, 2015. "Donor coordination in project funding: Evidence from a threshold public goods experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 16-29.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Coordination; IQ; personality; discount rate; patience; risk-aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:27723. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.