Coordinated action in the Electronic Mail Game

We examine a version of Rubinstein's Electronic Mail Game in which the noisy communications technology is voluntary and costly. Multiple Nash equilibria exist, including an equilibrium in which messages are ignored, and an equilibrium in which only one message is sent, revealing the state of nature and allowing coordination on the relevant action whenever this message arrives. The equilibrium in which messages are ignored is eliminated by an appropriate 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.