The Curse of Shared Knowledge: Recursive Belief Reasoning in a Coordination Game with Imperfect Information
Bolander first author, in a preprint with no peer-reviewed version located. Three experiments with 802 participants used a two-person coordination game with imperfect information, built so that the fact needed for the highest payoff can only ever be shared knowledge to some depth and never common knowledge. Even at shallow depths players behaved as though they held common knowledge and claimed similar certainty, while incurring significant penalties for wrongly assuming coordination was guaranteed.
Bolander first author, in a preprint with no peer-reviewed version located. Three experiments with 802 participants used a two-person coordination game with imperfect information, built so that the fact needed for the highest payoff can only ever be shared knowledge to some depth and never common knowledge. Even at shallow depths players behaved as though they held common knowledge and claimed similar certainty, while incurring significant penalties for wrongly assuming coordination was guaranteed.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-18.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
arXiv:2008.08849v3, 11 November 2025 in full at the arXiv listing. Preprint, no peer-reviewed version found.