IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1141.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Money Illusion and Coordination Failure

Author

Listed:
  • Ernst Fehr
  • Jean-Robert Tyran

Abstract

Economists long considered money illusion to be largely irrelevant. Here we show, however, that money illusion has powerful effects on equilibrium selection. If we represent payoffs in nominal terms, choices converge to the Pareto inefficient equilibrium; however, if we lift the veil of money by representing payoffs in real terms, the Pareto efficient equilibrium is selected. We also show that strategic uncertainty about the other players' behavior is key for the equilibrium selection effects of money illusion: even though money illusion vanishes over time if subjects are given learning opportunities in the context of an individual optimization problem, powerful and persistent effects of money illusion are found when strategic uncertainty prevails.

Suggested Citation

  • Ernst Fehr & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2004. "Money Illusion and Coordination Failure," CESifo Working Paper Series 1141, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1141.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    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.
    2. Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2001. "Ten Little Treasures of Game Theory and Ten Intuitive Contradictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1402-1422, December.
    3. Jordi Brandts & David J. Cooper, 2005. "It's What You Say Not What You Pay," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 643.05, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    4. C.Mónica Capra & Tomomi Tanaka & ColinF. Camerer & Lauren Feiler & Veronica Sovero & CharlesN. Noussair, 2009. "The Impact of Simple Institutions in Experimental Economies with Poverty Traps," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 977-1009, July.
    5. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    6. Cooper,Russell, 1999. "Coordination Games," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521578967, June.
    7. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Crawford, Vincent P & Broseta, Bruno, 2001. "Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1193-1235, September.
    8. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Christian Julliard, 2008. "Money Illusion and Housing Frenzies," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 135-180, January.
    9. George A. Akerlof, 2003. "Behavioral Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Behavior," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 25-47, March.
    10. Agell, Jonas & Bennmarker, Helge, 2002. "Wage policy and endogenous wage rigidity: a representative view from the inside," Working Paper Series 2002:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    11. Peter Howitt, 2002. "Looking Inside the Labor Market: A Review Article," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 125-138, March.
    12. Frank Heinemann & Rosemarie Nagel & Peter Ockenfels, 2009. "Measuring Strategic Uncertainty in Coordination Games," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 181-221.
    13. Cooper, Russell, et al, 1990. "Selection Criteria in Coordination Games: Some Experimental Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 218-233, March.
    14. Weizsacker, Georg, 2003. "Ignoring the rationality of others: evidence from experimental normal-form games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 145-171, July.
    15. Cannon, Edmund & Cipriani, Giam Pietro, 2006. "Euro-Illusion: A Natural Experiment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1391-1403, August.
    16. Giancarlo Marini & Fabrizio Adriani & Pasquale Scaramozzino, 2003. "The Inflationary Consequences of a Currency Changeover: Evidence from the Michelin Red Guide," CEIS Research Paper 27, Tor Vergata University, CEIS.
    17. Eldar Shafir & Peter Diamond & Amos Tversky, 1997. "Money Illusion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 341-374.
    18. Randolph B. Cohen & Christopher Polk & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2005. "Money Illusion in the Stock Market: The Modigliani-Cohn Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(2), pages 639-668.
    19. Ernst Fehr & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2001. "Does Money Illusion Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1239-1262, December.
    20. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    21. Kahn, Shulamit, 1997. "Evidence of Nominal Wage Stickiness from Microdata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 993-1008, December.
    22. Anderson, Simon P. & Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2001. "Minimum-Effort Coordination Games: Stochastic Potential and Logit Equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 177-199, February.
    23. 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, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(3), pages 885-910.
    24. Carl M. Campbell III & Kunal S. Kamlani, 1997. "The Reasons for Wage Rigidity: Evidence from a Survey of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(3), pages 759-789.
    25. Tobin, James, 1972. "Inflation and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 1-18, March.
    26. Chwe, Michael Suk-Young, 1999. "The Reeded Edge and the Phillips Curve: Money Neutrality, Common Knowledge, and Subjective Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 49-71, July.
    27. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-741, September.
    28. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    money illusion; coordination failure; equilibrium selection; multiple equilibria; coordination games;

    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:ces:ceswps:_1141. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Klaus Wohlrabe). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.