That's my final offer! Bargaining behavior with costly delay and credible commitment

Kurtis Swope (), John Cadigan and Pamela Schmitt

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2014, vol. 49, issue C, 44-53

Abstract: We examine laboratory bargaining experiments with symmetric and asymmetric delay costs and options for proposers to credibly commit to a bargaining position. Contrary to standard game-theoretic predictions, our experimental results suggest that commitment can be used effectively to increase the committer's payoff, particularly in a one-to-many bargaining environment where strategic holdout behavior is likely. However, we find evidence that commitment may also increase the number of failed agreements and reduce overall efficiency from exchange. To explain why behavior is inconsistent with standard game-theoretic predictions, we offer a behavioral bargaining model that allows for both “sincere” and “strategic” responders. Strategic responders behave as expected-payoff maximizers, while sincere responders behave according to a minimum-acceptable-offer (MAO) rule. We demonstrate that a mix of sincere and strategic types in the population is necessary to generate increasing equilibrium offers over time and “holdout” behavior, whereby strategic responders wait for higher offers in later periods. In response, proposers may find it optimal to commit early to an offer if commitment is possible.

Keywords: Experiments; Ultimatum game; Multilateral bargaining; Credible commitment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:49:y:2014:i:c:p:44-53

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2014.02.005

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