Waste occurs because of coordination failures (In the early days of railroads each line had a different gauge).

If competitors' products are not interoperable (due to causes such as patents, trade secrets or coordination failures), the result may well be monopoly or market failure.

Diamond's model was of interest to New Keynesian economists who saw it as potential source of coordination failure, which could cause markets to fail to clear.

In such a scenario, economic downturns appear to be the result of coordination failure: The invisible hand fails to coordinate the usual, optimal, flow of production and consumption.

As in other cases of coordination failure, Diamond's model has multiple equilibria, and the welfare of one agent is dependent on the decisions of others.

Other potential sources of coordination failure include self-fulfilling prophecies.

The "tragedy of the anticommons" covers a range of coordination failures including patent thickets, submarine patents, and nail houses.

In economics, coordination failure is a concept that can explain recessions through the failure of firms and other price setters to coordinate.

In an economic system with multiple equilibria, coordination failure occurs when a group of firms could achieve a more desirable equilibrium but fail to because they do not coordinate their decision making.

Models of coordination failure can have multiple equilibria.