Does the obligation to bargain make you fit the mould? An experimental analysis

Eve-Angeline Lambert and Jean-Christian Tisserand

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: In a lot of real-life legal disputes, the parties have the obligation to nego- tiate before an external solution is imposed to them. We investigate theoret- ically and experimentally the impact of such a constraint on the behavior of bargainers and on the outcome of this bargaining. Individuals initially choose whether to bargain over the division of a pie, and if one of them refuses, then the bargaining may be imposed to them with some probability. We show that individuals who are forced to bargain are significantly more aggressive than those who initially choose to bargain, and this behavior is indeed partly due to the constraint. This implies that the fact to be constrained does not bring individuals to behave as if they had freely made this decision, which proves that the way the bargaining process is enforced is not neutral, and affects the outcome of this process. This feature should be taken into account for the design of legal procedures of resolution of individual and collective conflicts.

Keywords: Bargaining; Conflicts; Enforcement; Forced negotiation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2016-37

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