Restricted Coasean bargaining

Ian MacKenzie and Markus Ohndorf

Journal of Public Economics, 2013, vol. 97, issue C, 296-307

Abstract: We investigate the efficiency of Coasean bargaining when restrictions are placed on the set of feasible bargaining outcomes. When property rights are costly to (defend) appropriate, we find that bargaining restrictions may be Pareto superior to unconstrained voluntary exchange. Under cost uncertainty over the harmful activity, we show that an efficient configuration of restrictions must balance the potential reduction in appropriation costs with the possibility of allocatively inefficient bargaining restrictions. For an all-pay auction, we find conditions where precluding bargaining is always ex ante preferable to unrestricted bargaining. For cases where the restrictions are contested, we show conditions for the continuing existence of welfare improvements.

Keywords: Coase theorem; Bargaining restrictions; Contest; All-pay auction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 D72 K0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Working Paper: Restricted Coasean Bargaining (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:97:y:2013:i:c:p:296-307

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.11.002

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