We experimentally explore the effects and interactions of three variables considered important when bargaining over a jointly produced surplus: performance information, production uncertainties when translating performance into output, and subjective entitlements derived from the production process. We find that without performance information subjective entitlements are mostly mutually consist...

I analyse the effects of a downstream merger in a differentiated oligopoly when there is bargaining between downstream firms and upstream agents (firms or unions). Bargaining outcomes can be observable or unobservable by rivals. When competition is in quantities, upstream agents are independent and bargaining is over a uniform input price, a merger between downstream firms may raise consumer su...

The effects of unions on productivity and firm performance have been the topic of extensive research. Existing studies have, however, primarily focused on firm-level bargaining and on markets that are characterised by a small and fixed number of identical firms. This paper studies how different unionisation structures affect firm productivity and firm performance in a monopolistic competition m...

We consider bargaining problems under the assumption that players are loss averse, i.e., experience disutility from obtaining an outcome lower than some reference point. We follow the approach of Shalev (2002) by imposing the self-supporting condition on an outcome: an outcome z in a bargaining problem is self-supporting under a given bargaining solution, whenever transforming the problem using...

I telling the tale of, and analyzing the decisions made by, an heir claimant to a large fortune, Lippman and McCardle (2004) introduce embedded Nash bargaining, an approach to modeling joint decision making. They embed several bargaining games in a joint decision tree and calculate the expected payoffs to the two sides if the Nash bargaining solution is used to generate the intermediate payoffs...

We develop a two-sided reputational bargaining model with deadlines, and analyze the implications of linking a reputation for commitment on one bargaining issue, to reputation on future issues. The model is adapted from that of Abreu and Gul [2000], where some agents are committed to achieving a fixed share of any surplus available. Among the conclusions drawn are: the ordering of issues on the...

1998, vol. 53, n° 3 0034-379X In recent years, there has been a trend in many countries toward a decentralization of collective bargaining structures. This study employs two methods to provide a deeper analysis than previous studies of the forces that determine bargaining structure. First, it builds a framework to analyze bargaining structure by integrating previous theoretical and empirical wo...

The paper has benefited greatly from comments by an anonymous referee and numerous seminar participants as well as discussions with Abstract We ask how bargainers' incentives to communicate about more efficient widget designs depend on whether they negotiate price prior to, or after, fixing the traded design. We find three effects: (1) Since communication reveals information about preferences, ...

Research on bargaining suggests that the efficiency of bargaining is related to the size of the surplus to be divided and to uncertainty about the opponent. We conducted a bargaining experiment which manipulated both of these factors. We find that the presence of uncertainty decreases bargaining efficiency, while the effect of contract zone size depends on whether there is uncertainty or certai...