IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v112y1997i2p581-602..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Evolution of Bargaining Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Tore Ellingsen

Abstract

The paper examines the evolutionary foundations of bilateral bargaining behavior. Interaction is assumed to be personal, in the sense that agents may recognize each others' bargaining strategies. In particular, the model allows interaction between "obstinate" agents, whose demands are independent of the opponent, and "sophisticated" agents, who adapt to their opponent's expected play. When the pie's size is certain, evolution favors obstinate agents who insist on getting at least half the pie. The unique outcome is an equal split. In sufficiently noisy environments, sophisticated behavior appears in equilibrium together with greedy obstinate behavior. There is then a positive probability of conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Tore Ellingsen, 1997. "The Evolution of Bargaining Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 581-602.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:112:y:1997:i:2:p:581-602.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/003355397555299
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:112:y:1997:i:2:p:581-602.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.