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Moral Property Rights in Bargaining

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  • Simon Gaechter
  • Arno Riedl

Abstract

In many business transactions, in labor-management relations, in international conflicts, and welfare state reforms claims acquired in the past seem to create strong entitlements that shape current negotiations. Despite their importance, the role of entitlements in negotiations has not received much attention. We fill the gap by designing an experiment that allows us to measure the entitlements and to track them through the whole negotiation process. We find strong entitlement effects that shape opening offers, bargaining duration, concessions and reached (dis-)agreements. We argue that entitlements constitute a “moral property right” that is influential independent of negotiators’ legal property rights.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Gaechter & Arno Riedl, 2002. "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 697, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_697
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    moral property rights; fairness judgements; bargaining with claims; self-serving bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

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