Essays in Evolutionary Game Theory

This thesis contains three essays in evolutionary game theory. In the first chapter, we study the impact of switching costs on the long run outcome in 2X2 coordination games played in the circular city model of local interactions. We find that for low levels of switching costs, the risk dominant convention is the unique long run equilibrium. For intermediate levels of switching costs the set of long run equilibria contains the risk dominant convention but may also contain conventions that are not risk dominant. For high levels of switching costs also nonmonomorphic states will be included in the set of LRE. We study the impact of location heterogeneity on neighborhood segregation in the one-dimensional Schelling residential model in the second chapter. We model location heterogeneity by introducing an advantageous node, in which a player’s utility is impartial to the composition of her neighborhood. We find that when every player interacts with two neighbors, one advantageous node in the circular city will lead to a result that segregation is no longer the unique LRE. When players interact with more neighbors, more advantageous nodes are necessary to obtain the same result. In the third chapter, we consider a model of social coordination and network formation, where players of two groups play a 2X2 coordination game when connected. Players in one group actively decide on whom they play with and on the action in the game, while players in the other group decide on the action in the game only. We find that if either group’s population size is small in comparison to the linking restriction, all players will choose the risk dominant equilibrium, while when both groups are sufficiently large in population, the players of two groups will coordinate on the payoff dominant action.