IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/wcbess/15-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Efficiency versus equality in real-time bargaining with communication

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio Galeotti

    (University of Lyon)

  • Maria Montero

    (University of Nottingham)

  • Anders Poulsen

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

We collect experimental data from unstructured bargaining situations where bargainers are free to communicate via written messages. We vary the set of feasible contracts, thereby allowing us to assess the focality of three properties of bargaining outcomes: equality, Pareto efficiency, and total earnings maximization. Our main findings are that subjects avoid an equal earnings contract if it is Pareto inefficient; a large proportion of bargaining pairs avoid equal and Pareto efficient contracts in favor of unequal and total earnings maximizing contracts, and this proportion increases when unequal contracts offer larger earnings to one of the players, even though this implies higher inequality. Finally, observed behavior violates the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives axiom, a result we attribute to a 'compromise effect'.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2015. "Efficiency versus equality in real-time bargaining with communication," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-18, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    • Handle: RePEc:uea:wcbess:15-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/166500/0/CBESS+15-18.pdf/68dc85b5-e664-4eb1-bd94-a25ed56b085e
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2004. "Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 857-869, September.
    2. Nejat Anbarci & Nick Feltovich, 2013. "How sensitive are bargaining outcomes to changes in disagreement payoffs?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(4), pages 560-596, December.
    3. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    4. Jordi Brandts & David J. Cooper, 2007. "It's What You Say, Not What You Pay: An Experimental Study of Manager–Employee Relationships in Overcoming Coordination Failure," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(6), pages 1223-1268, December.
    5. Herreiner, Dorothea K. & Puppe, Clemens, 2010. "Inequality aversion and efficiency with ordinal and cardinal social preferences--An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 238-253, November.
    6. John Bone & John D. Hey & John Suckling, 2018. "What price compromise?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 19, pages 409-426, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. David J. Cooper & Kai-Uwe K?hn, 2014. "Communication, Renegotiation, and the Scope for Collusion," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 247-278, May.
    8. 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.
    9. , & ,, 2012. "Reason-based choice: a bargaining rationale for the attraction and compromise effects," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(1), January.
    10. Simon Gächter & Arno Riedl, 2005. "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining with Infeasible Claims," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 249-263, February.
    11. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    12. Feltovich, Nick & Swierzbinski, Joe, 2011. "The role of strategic uncertainty in games: An experimental study of cheap talk and contracts in the Nash demand game," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 554-574, May.
    13. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    14. Roth, Alvin E & Murnighan, J Keith & Schoumaker, Francoise, 1988. "The Deadline Effect in Bargaining: Some Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 806-823, September.
    15. Nash, John, 1950. "The Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), pages 155-162, April.
    16. Isoni, Andrea & Poulsen, Anders & Sugden, Robert & Tsutsui, Kei, 2013. "Focal points in tacit bargaining problems: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 167-188.
    17. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    18. Emin Karagözoğlu & Arno Riedl, 2015. "Performance Information, Production Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2611-2626, November.
    19. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    20. Roth, Alvin E & Murnighan, J Keith, 1982. "The Role of Information in Bargaining: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1123-1142, September.
    21. Andrea Isoni & Anders Poulsen & Robert Sugden & Kei Tsutsui, 2014. "Efficiency, Equality, and Labeling: An Experimental Investigation of Focal Points in Explicit Bargaining," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3256-3287, October.
    22. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bett, Zoë & Poulsen, Anders & Poulsen, Odile, 2016. "The focality of dominated compromises in tacit coordination situations: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 29-34.
    2. Anders Poulsen & Axel Sonntag, 2019. "Focality is Intuitive - Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Time Pressure in Coordination Games," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 19-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    3. Salvatore Nunnari & Jan Zapal, 2017. "A Model of Focusing in Political Choice," Working Papers 599, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.

    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. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2019. "Efficiency Versus Equality in Bargaining," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1941-1970.
    2. Colin F. Camerer & Gideon Nave & Alec Smith, 2019. "Dynamic Unstructured Bargaining with Private Information: Theory, Experiment, and Outcome Prediction via Machine Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1867-1890, April.
    3. Luhan, Wolfgang J. & Poulsen, Anders U. & Roos, Michael W.M., 2017. "Real-time tacit bargaining, payoff focality, and coordination complexity: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 687-699.
    4. Feltovich, Nick, 2019. "Is earned bargaining power more fully exploited?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 152-180.
    5. Kroll, Eike B. & Morgenstern, Ralf & Neumann, Thomas & Schosser, Stephan & Vogt, Bodo, 2014. "Bargaining power does not matter when sharing losses – Experimental evidence of equal split in the Nash bargaining game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 261-272.
    6. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2022. "The Attraction and Compromise Effects in Bargaining: Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2987-3007, April.
    7. Mamadou Gueye & Nicolas Querou & Raphaël Soubeyran, 2018. "Does equity induce inefficiency? An experiment on coordination," Post-Print hal-02100263, HAL.
    8. Schwaninger, Manuel, 2022. "Sharing with the powerless third: Other-regarding preferences in dynamic bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 341-355.
    9. Tanjim Hossain & Elizabeth Lyons & Aloysius Siow, 2020. "Fairness considerations in joint venture formation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(3), pages 632-667, September.
    10. He, Simin & Wu, Jiabin & Zhang, Hanzhe, 2021. "Experimental and Noncooperative Analyses of Decentralized Matching with Transfers," Working Papers 2021-2, Michigan State University, Department of Economics.
    11. David Macro & Jeroen Weesie, 2016. "Inequalities between Others Do Matter: Evidence from Multiplayer Dictator Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, April.
    12. Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2016. "Equity and bargaining power in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 144-165.
    13. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert & Traub, Stefan, 2014. "Social preferences and voting on reform: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 36-55.
    14. Holger Herz & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2018. "What Makes a Price Fair? An Experimental Study of Transaction Experience and Endogenous Fairness Views," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 316-352.
    15. Christiane Bradler, 2009. "Social Preferences under Risk - An Experimental Analysis," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-022, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    16. Alexia Gaudeul, 2013. "Social preferences under uncertainty," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-024, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    17. Dengler-Roscher, Kathrin & Montinari, Natalia & Panganiban, Marian & Ploner, Matteo & Werner, Benedikt, 2018. "On the malleability of fairness ideals: Spillover effects in partial and impartial allocation tasks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 60-74.
    18. Felix Koelle, 2012. "Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Privileged Groups: The Role of Capability and Valuation on Public Goods Provision," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-08, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    19. Ingersoll, William Robert & Roomets, Alex, 2020. "Bargaining with a partially-incentivized agent," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 96-115.
    20. Li, Shuwen & Houser, Daniel, 2022. "Stochastic bargaining in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 687-715.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bargaining; efficiency; equality; communication; experiment; independence of irrelevant alternatives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uea:wcbess:15-18. 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: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.html .

    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.