Competition as a Coordination Device

Experimental Evidence from a Minimum Effort Coordination Game

Abstract

The problem of coordination failure, particularly in 'team production' situations, is central to a large number of mircroeconomic as well as macroeconomic models. As this type of inefficient coordination poses a severe economic problem, there is a need for institutions that foster efficient coordination of individual economic plans. In this paper, we introduce such a rather classical economic institution: competition. In a series of laboratory experiments, we reveal that the true reason for coordination failure is strategic uncertainty, which can be reduced almost completely by introducing a appropriately designed mechanism of (inter-group) competition.