Coordination in Noncooperative Three-Person Games under Different Information Structures

Although game theory discusses focal point effects in pure coordination games, it is largely silent with respect to the game properties that render an equilibrium salient. Schelling (1960), and subsequently Mehta et al. (1994), started a program of developing a descriptive theory of focal points in pure coordination games by showing that strategy labelling makes an equilibrium salient by deriving its significance from the common experience and beliefs of the players. We report three experiments on noncooperative three-person coordination games in extensive form which show that, in addition to strategy labeling, players choose equilibria based on information about the temporal order of play, which is considered irrelevant by classical game theory.