We investigate the effect of absence of common knowledge on the outcomes of

coordination games in a laboratory experiment. Using cognitive types, we can

explain coordination failure in pure coordination games while differentiating between

coordination failure due to first- and higher-order beliefs.

In our experiment, around 76% of the subjects have chosen the payoff-dominant

equilibrium strategy despite the absence of common knowledge. However, 9%

of the players had first-order beliefs that lead to coordination failure and another

9% exhibited coordination failure due to higher-order beliefs. Furthermore, we

compare our results with predictions of commonly used models of higher-order

beliefs.