IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/minsoc/v19y2020i1d10.1007_s11299-020-00225-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agreement by conduct as a coordination device

Author

Listed:
  • Arnald J. Kanning

Abstract

In distributive bargaining, bargainers may have an impulse to bluff and thereby risk an impasse. The current paper does not explain bargaining impasses. For our purposes, it suffices to recognize that bargaining impasses may occur without assuming irrationality. The design problem is to ensure that impasses are avoided as often as possible. One possible solution is to allow for the formation of an agreement by “conduct”. The ‘agreement by conduct’ outcome as a commercial norm may coordinate bargainers’ expectations so as to enable them to perform the same contract, even if they made written demands above ½ (as a bluff). The idea that the “deal-is-on” philosophy as expressed in the “agreement-by-conduct” rule affects and promotes economic exchange is probed in the context of a modified Divide-the-Dollar game.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnald J. Kanning, 2020. "Agreement by conduct as a coordination device," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 19(1), pages 77-90, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:minsoc:v:19:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11299-020-00225-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11299-020-00225-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11299-020-00225-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11299-020-00225-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 2009. "Cognition and Incomplete Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 265-294, March.
    2. H. Peyton Young, 2015. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 359-387, August.
    3. Pierpaolo Battigalli & Giovanni Maggi, 2002. "Rigidity, Discretion, and the Costs of Writing Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 798-817, September.
    4. Peyton Young, H., 1998. "Social norms and economic welfare1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 821-830, May.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    6. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2010. "On inequity aversion: A reply to Binmore and Shaked," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 101-108, January.
    7. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
    8. R. Myerson, 2010. "Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 6.
    9. Ken Binmore & Larry Samuelson & Petyon Young, 2003. "Equilibrium Selection in Bargaining Models," Levine's Bibliography 506439000000000466, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Binmore, Ken & Samuelson, Larry & Young, Peyton, 2003. "Equilibrium selection in bargaining models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 296-328, November.
    11. Ken Binmore, 1998. "Game Theory and the Social Contract - Vol. 2: Just Playing," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 2, number 0262024446, April.
    12. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    13. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    14. Rong, Kang, 2012. "Alternating-offer games with final-offer arbitration," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 596-610.
    15. Yildiz, Muhamet, 2011. "Nash meets Rubinstein in final-offer arbitration," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 226-230, March.
    16. Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "A Theory of Disagreement in Bargaining," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 607-637, May.
    17. Shinji Teraji, 2017. "Understanding coevolution of mind and society: institutions-as-rules and institutions-as-equilibria," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 16(1), pages 95-112, November.
    18. Ken Binmore, 2010. "Social norms or social preferences?," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 9(2), pages 139-157, December.
    19. H. Peyton Young, 1996. "The Economics of Convention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 105-122, Spring.
    20. Anbarci, Nejat & Feltovich, Nick, 2012. "Bargaining with random implementation: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 495-514.
    21. Oliver E. Williamson, 2002. "The Lens of Contract: Private Ordering," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 438-443, May.
    22. Crawford, Vincent P, 1985. "Efficient and Durable Decision Rules: A Reformulation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(4), pages 817-835, July.
    23. H. Peyton Young, 1998. "Conventional Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(4), pages 773-792.
    24. Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Reference points, anchors, norms, and mixed feelings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 296-312, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simon Halliday, 2011. "Rarer Actions: Giving and Taking in Third-Party Punishment Games," Working Papers 211, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Hwang, Sung-Ha & Lim, Wooyoung & Neary, Philip & Newton, Jonathan, 2018. "Conventional contracts, intentional behavior and logit choice: Equality without symmetry," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 273-294.
    3. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Barbara Dluhosch, 2011. "European Economics at a Crossroads, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr., Richard P. F. Holt, and David Colander," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 629-631, August.
    5. Alger, Ingela & Van Leeuwen, Boris, 2019. "Estimating Social Preferences and Kantian Morality in Strategic Interactions," TSE Working Papers 19-1056, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2023.
    6. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2011. "Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?," Department of Economics University of Siena 617, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    7. Andreozzi, Luciano, 2013. "Learning to be fair," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 181-195.
    8. James Alm, 2019. "What Motivates Tax Compliance?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 353-388, April.
    9. J. Barkley Rosser Jr & Richard P.F. Holt & David Colander, 2010. "European Economics at a Crossroads," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13585.
    10. Ellingsen, Tore & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Decency," Working Papers 2019:3, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    11. H Peyton Young, 2014. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 726, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Anne Corcos & Yorgos Rizopoulos, 2011. "Is prosocial behavior egocentric? The “invisible hand” of emotions," Post-Print halshs-01968213, HAL.
    13. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    14. John A. List, 2007. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 482-493.
    15. Tetsuo Yamamori & Kazuyuki Iwata, 2023. "Wage claim detracts reciprocity in labor relations: experimental study of gift exchange games," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 18(3), pages 573-597, July.
    16. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    17. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman, 2018. "Reputation Transmission Without Benefit To The Reporter: A Behavioral Underpinning Of Markets In Experimental Focus," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 158-172, January.
    18. Pelligra, Vittorio, 2010. "Trust responsiveness. On the dynamics of fiduciary interactions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 653-660, December.
    19. Andreas Leibbrandt, 2016. "Behavioral Constraints on Pricing: Experimental Evidence on Price Discrimination and Customer Antagonism," CESifo Working Paper Series 6214, CESifo.
    20. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Mollerstrom, Johanna & Munkhammar, Sara, 2012. "Social framing effects: Preferences or beliefs?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 117-130.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bluff; Bargaining impasse; Focal point; Fairness norm; Commercial norm; Agreement by conduct; Coordination device; Equilibrium selection; Divide the dollar;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D69 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Other
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)

    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:spr:minsoc:v:19:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11299-020-00225-5. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.