Abstract

Scholars have investigated empirically how networks help or hinder a group's ability to solve real-world coordination problems. We add to the literature on coordination and networks by utilizing laboratory experiment to study the conditions under which groups of subjects can solve coordination games. We study a variety of different network structures that differ in their level of connectivity, and we also investigate coordination games with symmetric and asymmetric payoffs. Our results show that greater network connectivity helps to facilitate coordination both in symmetric and asymmetric games. Most significantly we find that network connectivity facilitates coordination even when payoffs are highly asymmetric. These results shed light on the conditions that may facilitate coordination in real-world networks.