Coordination
Players want the same thing and the only difficulty is settling on which of several workable arrangements to use.
Often misread asLumping coordination games in with the prisoner's dilemma and concluding that talking beforehand cannot help, on the grounds that it does not help there.
How to see it
We agree about what we want, we just need to want the same one
A coordination problem is one where interests largely line up but there are several ways of lining up and nothing to pick between them. Driving on the left is as good as driving on the right. The only thing that matters is doing what everyone else does.
The checkTalk is useless when the problem is an incentive to deviate and powerful when the only problem is which equilibrium to pick, because here nobody wants to break an agreement they believe the other side is keeping.
Try itAgree with a friend to meet at the station at noon, then ask whether either of you has any reason to go elsewhere given the other is going to the station. Run the same test on an agreement to cooperate in the prisoner's dilemma and watch the answer flip.
Games that show it
Know these first
Leads on to
Easily confused with
Sources
- Schelling, T. (1960). Harvard University Press.
- Lewis, D. (1969). Harvard University Press.