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The dark side of friendship: ‘envy’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ramón Cobo-Reyes  and
Natalia Jiménez
Ramón Cobo-Reyes*
Affiliation:
University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Natalia Jiménez
Affiliation:
University of Granada, Granada, Spain University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper studies the effect of social relations on convergence to the efficient equilibrium in 2 × 2 coordination games from an experimental perspective. We employ a 2 × 2 factorial design in which we explore two different games with asymmetric payoffs and two matching protocols: “friends” versus “strangers”. In the first game, payoffs by the worse-off player are the same in the two equilibria, whereas in the second game, this player will receive lower payoffs in the efficient equilibrium. Surprisingly, the results show that “strangers” coordinate more frequently in the efficient equilibrium than “friends” in both games. Network measures such as in-degree, out-degree and betweenness are all positively correlated with playing the strategy which leads to the efficient outcome but clustering is not. In addition, ‘envy’ explains no convergence to the efficient outcome.

Keywords

CoordinationEfficiency‘Envy’ExperimentsFriendshipSocial networks

JEL classification

D63: Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement A14: Sociology of Economics C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 547 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-012-9313-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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