Communication and Interference Coordination

We study the problem of controlling the interference created to an external observer by a communication processes. We model the interference in terms of its type (empirical distribution), and we analyze the consequences of placing constraints on the admissible type. Considering a single interfering link, we characterize the communication-interference capacity region. Then, we look at a scenario where the interference is jointly created by two users allowed to coordinate their actions prior to transmission. In this case, the trade-off involves communication and interference as well as coordination. We establish an achievable communication-interference region and show that efficiency is significantly improved by coordination

Communication, coordination and networks

We study experimentally how the network structure and length of pre-play communication affect behavior and outcome in a multi-player coordination game with conflicting preferences. Network structure matters but the interaction between network and time effects is more subtle. Under each time treatment, substantial variations are observed in both the rate of coordination and distribution of coordinated outcomes across networks. But, increasing the communication length improves both efficiency and equity of coordination. In all treatments, coordination is mostly explained by convergence in communication. We also identify behaviors that explain variations in the distribution of coordinated outcomes both within and across networks

Communication, Coordination and Networks

We study experimentally how the network structure and length of pre-play communication affect behavior and outcome in a multi-player coordination game with conflicting preferences. Network structure matters but the interaction between network and time effects is more subtle. Under each time treatment, substantial variations are observed in both the rate of coordination and distribution of coordinated outcomes across networks. But increasing the communication length improves both efficiency an equity of coordination. In all treatments, coordination is mostly explained by convergence in communication. We also identify behaviors that explain variations in the distribution of coordinated outcomes both within and across networks.experiment; pre-play communication; coordination; network; efficiency; equity

The Demand for Coordination

This paper endogenizes coordination problems in organizations by allowing for both ex ante coordination of activities, using rules and task guidelines, and ex post coordination, using communication and broad job assignments. It shows that: (i) Task specialization and the division of labor is mainly limited by employee discretion, rather than by the importance of coordination. In particular, specialization is often non-monotonic in the importance of coordination. (ii) Organizations exhibit increasing returns to ex post coordination. This rationalizes discrete `shifts' in organizational design from very rigid and specialized task assignments, to very flexible organizations characterized by extensive task bundling, intensive horizontal communication and substantial employee discretion. (iii) Broad task assignments and intensive horizontal communication are complementary. Hence, lower communication costs often result in less specialization.

Reducing Efficiency through Communication in Competitive Coordination Games

Costless pre-play communication has been found to effectively facilitate coordination and enhance efficiency by increasing individual payoffs in games with Pareto-ranked equilibria. We report an experiment in which two groups compete in a weakest-link contest by expending costly efforts. Allowing group members to communicate before choosing efforts leads to more aggressive competition and greater coordination, but also results in substantially lower payoffs than a control treatment without communication. Our experiment thus provides evidence that communication can reduce efficiency in competitive coordination games. This contrasts sharply with experimental findings from public goods and other coordination games, where communication enhances efficiency and often leads to socially optimal outcomes.Contest; Between-group Competition; Within-group Competition; Cooperation; Coordination; Free-riding; Experiments

Strong Coordination over Noisy Channels: Is Separation Sufficient?

We study the problem of strong coordination of actions of two agents $X$ and $Y$ that communicate over a noisy communication channel such that the actions follow a given joint probability distribution. We propose two novel schemes for this noisy strong coordination problem, and derive inner bounds for the underlying strong coordination capacity region. The first scheme is a joint coordination-channel coding scheme that utilizes the randomness provided by the communication channel to reduce the local randomness required in generating the action sequence at agent $Y$. The second scheme exploits separate coordination and channel coding where local randomness is extracted from the channel after decoding. Finally, we present an example in which the joint scheme is able to outperform the separate scheme in terms of coordination rate.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. An extended version of a paper accepted for the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 201