Credible Pretrial Negotiation

Barry Nalebuff

RAND Journal of Economics, 1987, vol. 18, issue 2, 198-210

Abstract: Pretrial negotiation is a structured environment in which to study bargaining with incomplete information. When a plaintiff believes that a defendant owes him damages, he may first attempt to reach a private settlement before resorting to a costly court-imposed judgment. A central issue in their negotiations is whether the plaintiff's threat to litigate is credible. It is possible for the plaintiff to undermine the credibility of his litigation threat by making a settlement demand that is insufficient. As a result, the plaintiff must raise his settlement demand to limit the amount of bad news he can learn if his offer is rejected. When this credibility constraint is binding, traditional comparative static results are reversed. In addition, even though the defendant is being sued, he wants the plaintiff's threat to be credible.

Date: 1987
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