Coordination and Cooperation Problems in Network Good Production

Games 2010, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 357-380, 2010

Posted: 27 Oct 2010

See all articles by Antonie Knigge

Antonie Knigge

Utrecht University - Department of Sociology

Vincent Buskens

Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR); Utrecht University - Department of Sociology/ICS

Date Written: September 28, 2010

Abstract

If actors want to reach a particular goal, they are often better off forming collaborative relations and investing together rather than investing separately. We study the coordination and cooperation problems that might hinder successful collaboration in a dynamic network setting. We develop an experiment in which coordination problems are mainly due to finding partners for collaboration, while cooperation problems arise at the investment levels of partners who have already agreed to collaborate. The results show that as costs of forming links increase, groups succeed less often in solving the coordination problem. Still, if subjects are able to solve the coordination problem, they invest in a suboptimal way in the network good. It is mostly found that if cooperation is successful in terms of investment, it is due to subjects being able to monitor how much their partners invest. Moreover, subjects deal better with the coordination and cooperation problems as they gain experience.

Keywords: network formation, coordination, cooperation, experiments, collective goods

JEL Classification: C92

Suggested Citation

Knigge, Antonie and Buskens, Vincent and Buskens, Vincent, Coordination and Cooperation Problems in Network Good Production (September 28, 2010). Games 2010, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 357-380, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1685772

Antonie Knigge

Utrecht University - Department of Sociology ( email )

Heidelberglaan 2
Utrecht, 3584 CS
United States

Vincent Buskens (Contact Author)

Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) ( email )

Rotterdam
Netherlands

Utrecht University - Department of Sociology/ICS ( email )

Heidelberglaan 2
Utrecht, 3584 CS
Netherlands

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
494
PlumX Metrics