Migration and the evolution of conventions

Abstract

We study an evolutionary model where agents are locally matched to play a symmetric coordination game. Opportunities to adjust strategy and location arrive asynchronously and infrequently, and cannot be coordinated. Our results on the short-run co-existence of different conventions and long-run efficiency depend upon a condition on off-equilibrium payoffs introduced by Aumann. In a pure coordination game, efficient and inefficient conventions may co-exist at different locations in the short-run, and inefficient conventions are stochastically stable. In a stag-hunt game, there is neither short-run coexistence nor long-run inefficiency. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.