Talk:Coordination failure (economics)

Uhhh

The concept of coordination failure extends beyond just firms not being able to coordinate on prices. That's not a definition of the concept (or an article about it), that's a single example of it.radek (talk) 05:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the article implies that coordination failure is limited to the inability of firms to coordinate prices. The example presented is based on employment, not prices. That aside, the article is obviously short and limited, so feel free to expand it.--Bkwillwm (talk) 06:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Generally, coordination failure is a situation where there's an outcome which is preferred by everyone involved to an existing equilibrium outcome (hence Prisoner's Dilemma is not a coordination failure). Coordination failure can occur with multiple equilibria (one equilibrium is preferred to another) or with unique one (there's a all-preferred outcome which is not an equilibrium and a suboptimal one which is). Perhaps it'd be best to explain it in game theoretic terms, though models with coordination failures need to be game theoretic.radek (talk) 06:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Repeating ourselves

While some specific types of models might make a distinction, in general economists use self-fulfilling prophecy, sunspots, and animal spirits as synonyms. They are all symptoms of a situation of multiple equilibrium; coordination failure just means selection of an undesirable equilibrium. Rinconsoleao (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

In fact, might be better just to merge this into coordination game. Best of all, it would be nice to have a good article on Uniqueness and multiplicity of equilibrium in economic theory, but that would be a damn hard article to write, because it would link a bunch of technical, theoretical, and perhaps empirical issues about which economists disagree strongly. Currently it seems we just have a section called General equilibrium theory#uniqueness. Rinconsoleao (talk) 14:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)