Efficient Coordination in Repeated Games : Behavioral Maxims

Intuition suggests that in repeated games evolution leads to e fficient outcomes, we prove this result. Actions are used as implicit messages suggesting better ways to coordinate but also, in a subtler way, to assign diff erent roles to players. This allows to endogenously break the symmetries leading to ine fficiency. For coordination games and their generalizations this characterizes evolutionary stable payo ffs. Simple "behavioral maxims", related to the pragmatic ones, emerge in the evolutionary path. Previous claims to have solved the problem and their shortcomings are discussed in the appendix