The Effect of Sunk Costs on the Outcome of Alternating-Offers Bargaining Between Inequity-Averse Agents
Abstract
When investments are specific to a relationship and contracting possibilities are incomplete, the efficiency of a joint venture may be severely impaired by ex-post opportunistic and hold-up type behavior. How is the logic of this argument affected by inequity aversion? In this paper I show that incentives to invest are stronger with inequity aversion because a higher investment by an individual agent increases not only the total surplus to be divided, but also, generally, the relative share of the surplus obtained by this agent in the ex-post negotiation. In fact, when production is sufficiently profitable and agents are sufficiently patient, then first-best investment levels may be approximated without any contract.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Article provided by LMU Munich School of Management in its journal Schmalenbach Business Review.
Volume (Year): 58 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (April)
Pages: 184-203
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Muenchen
Phone: 0049 89 2180 2166
Fax: 0049 89 2180 6327
Web page: http://www.sbr-online.com
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Alternating-Offers Bargaining; Inequity Aversion; Hold-Up Problem;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
- L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2009. "Bargaining under incomplete information, fairness, and the hold-up problem," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 486-494, August.
- Christian Korth & Stefan Napel, 2008.
"Fairness, Price Stickiness, and History Dependence in Decentralized Trade,"
Working Papers
064, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
- Korth, Christian & Napel, Stefan, 2009. "Fairness, price stickiness, and history dependence in decentralized trade," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 502-514, August.
- Christian Korth & Stefan Napel, 2009. "Fairness, Price Stickiness, and History Dependence in Decentralized Trade," Working Papers 068, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
- Hoppe, Eva I. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2011.
"Can contracts solve the hold-up problem? Experimental evidence,"
Games and Economic Behavior,
Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 186-199, September.
- Hoppe, Eva I. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2009. "Can Contracts Solve the Hold-Up Problem? Experimental Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7205, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sbr:abstra:v:58:y:2006:i:2:p:184-203For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (sbr).
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.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

