On optimal agendas for package deal negotiation

This paper analyzes bilateral multi-issue negotiation where the issues are indivisible, there are time constraints in the form of deadlines and discount factors. The issues are negotiated using the package deal procedure. The set of issues to be negotiated is called the negotiation agenda. The agenda is crucial since the outcome of negotiation depends on the agenda. This paper therefore looks at the decision making involved in choosing a negotiation agenda. The scenario we look at is as follows. There are m > 2 issues available for negotiation. But from these, an agent must choose g < m issues and negotiate on them. Thus the problem for an agent is to choose an agenda (i.e, a subset of g issues). Clearly, from all possible agendas (i.e., all possible combinations of g issues), an agent must choose the one that maximizes its expected utility and is therefore its optimal agenda. To this end, this paper presents polynomial time methods for choosing an agent’s optimal agenda.