We consider the formation and long-run stability of cooperative groups in a social dilemma situation where the pursuit of individual interests conicts with the maximization of social welfare. The adaptive play model of Young (1993) is applied to a group formation game where voluntary...

We present a simple model of voluntary groups in a collective action problem where individuals differ in their willingness to cooperate. The heterogeneity of individuals' preferences generally yields multiple equilibrium groups with different levels of cooperation. Voluntary participation in a...

In an (n,m)-coordination game, each of the n players has two alternative strategies. A strategy generates positive payoff only if there are at least m-1 others who choose the same, where mn/2. The payoff is nondecreasing in the number of such others so that there are exactly two strict...

Centralized sanctioning institutions are of utmost importance for overcoming free-riding tendencies and enforcing outcomes that maximize group welfare in social dilemma situations. However, little is known about how such institutions come into existence. In this paper we investigate, both...

We investigate the equilibrium selection problem in n-person binary coordination games by means of adaptive play with mistakes (Young 1993). The size and the depth of a particular type of basins of attraction are found to be the main factors in determining the selection outcome. The main result...

We investigate the equilibrium selection problem in n-person binary coordination games by means of the adaptive play with mistakes (Young 1993). We show that whenever the difference between the deviation losses of respective equilibria is not overwhelming, the stochastic stability exhibits a...