This book investigates bargaining between two agents. Its objective is to present, to extend, and to apply the present state of theoretical knowledge. A wide range of questions will be considered: First of all, will two parties reach efficient agreements? Traditional economic theory gives a generally affirma tive answer for perfectly rational agents, who can carry out complex calcu lations instantaneously and without cost. The book uses innovative methods to analyse the implications of less demanding assumptions. A practical ques tion related to bargaining is: How much power does the design of institutions such as the U. N. Security Council give to each of its members? Formally, non permanent members' votes are necessary to pass resolutions, but theoretical investigation of pre-voting negotiation attributes all power to the five perma nent members. Or one may ask whether a society should rather finance the education in higher mathematics for a talented person than remedial training for a retarded person? Different concepts of justice yield different answers. Which particular concept is implemented in a given society is also a matter of bargaining, and it is of special philosophical interest to investigate which bargain will be struck in an ideal society in which individual talents and resources are not yet known. Very generally, a bilateral bargaining situation is characterized by two agents - individuals, firms, governments, etc.

This book investigates bargaining between two agents. Its objective is to present, to extend, and to apply the present state of theoretical knowledge. A wide range of questions will be considered: First of all, will two parties reach efficient agreements? Traditional economic theory gives a generally affirma tive answer for perfectly rational agents, who can carry out complex calcu lations instantaneously and without cost. The book uses innovative methods to analyse the implications of less demanding assumptions. A practical ques tion related to bargaining is: How much power does the design of institutions such as the U. N. Security Council give to each of its members? Formally, non permanent members' votes are necessary to pass resolutions, but theoretical investigation of pre-voting negotiation attributes all power to the five perma nent members. Or one may ask whether a society should rather finance the education in higher mathematics for a talented person than remedial training for a retarded person? Different concepts of justice yield different answers. Which particular concept is implemented in a given society is also a matter of bargaining, and it is of special philosophical interest to investigate which bargain will be struck in an ideal society in which individual talents and resources are not yet known. Very generally, a bilateral bargaining situation is characterized by two agents - individuals, firms, governments, etc.

Bargaining in the Shadow of the Market OCo Selected Papers on Bilateral and Multilateral Bargaining consists of selected research in bargaining carried out by Kalyan Chatterjee by himself and with various co-authors. Chatterjee has been one of the earliest researchers to work on noncooperative bargaining theory and has contributed to bilateral bargaining with parties having private information as well as multilateral coalition formation models. Some of his work in each of these areas finds place here.The main theme of this collection of papers is the nature of negotiations when participants have alternatives to continue negotiating, either by beginning negotiations with a different partner or set of partners or by engaging in time-consuming search for such partners. Chapters in this book include: a noncooperative theory of coalitional bargaining and features a laboratory experiment relevant to this theory as well as an extension to political negotiations, search for alternative partners, the effect of markets and bargaining on incentives of players to invest in the partnership and related papers on incentive compatibility, arbitration and a dynamic model of negotiation. The book also includes a new introduction that puts these papers in the context of the broader literature in the field.

A tour de force of theoretical reasoning, this book presents the most advanced analytical model of the bargaining process so far conceived. Focused essentially on the dynamics of the bargaining process, Coddington's model employs elements of several conceptual constructs--individual decision-making, theories of expectations and their adjustment, and environment concepts--to explain the nature of consistency in a bargainer's system of expectations and intentions.The book begins with a description of the bargaining process in an economic context and establishes an analytical framework. There follows a critical survey of bargaining theory in which the author selects those concepts, which he finds most valid and most applicable to his decision-making/expectation/adjustment model. The internal consistency of a wide class of bargaining models is then examined in a chapter on the relationship between decision-making and expectations. Since the theory of games has been used as a basis for bargaining process theory, the author devotes a chapter to an examination of the game-theoretic approach and an assessment of its value relative to his own approach.The author concludes with a study of the specific capabilities of his own analytical model, with discussion of the possible combinations of assumptions with which the investigator may work. Although stemming from a problem in economic theory and of immediate intent to economists, the book's contribution to the general theory of conflict process and interdependent decision-making make it an important study for students of politics and international affairs as well as management and labor relations specialists.

"In a volume which covers forty years of work on bargaining and negotiation and includes twenty-two contributions by the most prominent authors in the field--such as Frederik Zeuthen's theories of the early 1930s and Daniel Ellsberg's theory of the 'Relucant Dualist'--Oran Young evaluates all of the most important deductive models in the field, demonstrating their relevance for a wide range of political, social, and economic contexts, and emphasizing their ultimate application to real-world situations. Concerned with the potential of bargaining models as 'descriptive' or 'positive' theory in contrast to 'prescriptive' theory, Young views all of the theories as analytic techniques for coping with the problems associated with strategic interaction. He provides analytic and interpretative inroductions to each of the book's four parts: game-theoretic models of bargaining, economic models of bargaining, prospects for a unified theory, and manipulative models of bargaining. He also furnishes a general introduction and conclusion. Bargaining is common in a great many sociopolitical relationships, from the interactions of the members of family units to the interactions of nation states. Because of this widespread occurrence, there is a need for theoretical work on bargaining by students of all of the social sciences. In collecting and presenting the most important writings in the field, evaluating the prospects for further theoretical work, and clarifying several conceptual problems which commonly arise in analyses of bargaining, Young's book attempts to encourage this needed research. No advanced knowledge of mathematics is required to understand the essays, though a general familiarity with some of the principal techniques utilized in game theoretic and economic models is useful"--Publisher's description, p. [2] of dust jacket.