Coordinated action in the Electronic Mail Game

We examine a version of Rubinstein's Electronic Mail Game in which the nois y communications technology is voluntary and costly. Multiple Nash equilibr ia exist, including an equilibrium in which messages are ignored, and an eq uilibrium in which only one message is sent, revealing the state of nature and allowing coordination on the relevant action whenever this message arri ves. The equilibrium in which messages are ignored is eliminated by an appr opriate evolutionary stability condition. The remaining equilibria survive this criterion, including the equilibrium in which only one message is sent as well as equilibria in which longer strings of messages are exchanged. ( C) 2001 Academic Press.