We study the reasons and conditions under which mediation is beneficial when a principal needs information from an agent to implement an action. Assuming a strong form of limited commitment, the principal may employ a mediator who gathers information and makes non--binding proposals. We show that a partial revelation of information is more effective through a mediator than through the agent himself. This implies that mediation is strictly helpful if and only if the likelihood of a conflict of interest is positive but not too high. The value of mediation depends non--monotonically on the degree of conflict. Our insights extend to general models of contracting with imperfect commitment.
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Paper provided by Departmental Working Papers in its series Papers with number
023.
Kay Mitusch & Roland Strausz, 2004.
"Mediation in Situations of Conflict and Limited Commitment,"
Discussion Papers
24, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2003.
"Long Cheap Talk,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1619-1660, November.
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Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2002.
"Long Cheap Talk,"
Discussion Paper Series
dp284, Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, revised Nov 2002.
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Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Helmut Bester & Roland Strausz, 2003.
"Contracting with Imperfect Commitment and Noisy Communication,"
Discussion Papers
2, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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