Effects of Network Structure on Costly Coordination

Coordination is often required for satisfactory solutions to social problems. Two factors that affect the ability of groups to solve coordination problems are the information actors have about the actions of others and the costs of taking an action. We utilize a network approach to model the structure of communication between actors and test experimentally how the communication structure affects coordination when actions are costly. We find that the addition of costs causes a significant increase in the amount of time it takes for coordination to occur and that costs cause players to change the strategy they use to resolve the coordination dilemma. Furthermore, the effect of increased costs is not constant across the various network structures. Both more edges (communication) and higher degree variance (leadership) can attenuate the effect of costs to take an action. These results suggest that when designing or studying institutions we will want to account for the communication structures created by the institutions and how this structure may affect coordination.