The sanctioning of norm-violating behavior by an effective formal authority is an efficient solution for social dilemmas. It is in the self-interest of voters and is often favorably contrasted with letting citizens take punishment into their own hands. Allowing informal sanctions, by contrast,...

We consider a co-evolutionary model of social coordination and network formation whereagents may decide on an action in a 2 x 2- coordination game and on whom to establish costly links to. We find that a payoff dominant convention is selected for a wider parameter range when agents may only...

This paper presents a unified framework to study the co-evolution of networks and play, using the language of evolutionary game theory. We show by examples that the set-up is rich enough to encompass many recent models discussed by the literature. We completely characterize the invariant...

This papers studies the co-evolution of networks and play in the context of finite population potential games. Action revision, link creation and link destruction are combined in a continuous-time Markov process. I derive the unique invariant distribution of this process in closed form, as well...

This paper studies systemic risk and the scale of systemic breakdown in the frequently observed tiered banking system. The banking network is constructed from a number of banks which are linked by interbank exposures with a certain predefined probability. In this framework, the tiered structure...

This paper considers a setting in which the acquisition of human capital entails a change of location in social space that causes individuals to revise their comparison groups. Skill levels are viewed as occupational groups, and moving up the skill ladder by acquiring additional human capital,...

We consider quasi-orderings of infinite utility streams satisfying the strong Pareto axiom (i.e., Paretian quasi-orderings) and study the question of how strong a notion of intergenerational equity one can impose on these quasi-orderings without generating an impossibility theorem. Building on a...

The present note revisits a result by Kim and Wong (2010) showing that any strict Nash equilibrium of a coordination game can be supported as a long run equilibrium by properly adding dominated strategies. We show that in the circular city model of local interactions the selection of 1/2...

We model the structure of a firm or an organization as a network and consider minimum-effort games played on this network as a metaphor for cooperations failing due to coordination failures. For a family of behavioral rules, including Imitate the Best and the Proportional Imitation Rule, we show...

We let consumers vote on tax regimes in experimental markets. We test if taxes on sellers are more popular than taxes on consumers, i.e. on voters themselves, even if taxes on sellers are inefficiently high. Taxes on sellers are more popular if voters underestimate the extent of tax shifting in...