{"title":"Are Efficient Bargaining Power Disparities Unfair?: An Experimental Test","authors":"A. Nicholas, Birendra Rai","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3317204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3317204","url":null,"abstract":"A key question in labor and contract law is when does bargaining power disparity become too large to be considered 'impermissible'? It has largely been debated from the potentially conflicting perspectives of efficiency and fairness. These debates exhibit the intuitively plausible but empirically untested presumption that efficient bargaining power disparities can be unfair. The paper focuses on ex-post bargaining between agents locked in a relationship without a complete contract wherein surplus may ultimately be realized with or without mutual consent. We propose a consent-based definition to categorize a bargaining power disparity as either efficient or inefficient by treating surplus realized without mutual consent as an imperfect substitute for surplus realized with mutual consent. In order to categorize a power disparity as either fair or unfair, we draw upon some legal doctrines to propose a two-sided definition that accounts for the perspectives of both the weaker and the stronger bargaining parties. The experiment provides no robust evidence to support the presumption that economically efficient power disparities can be unfair.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"431 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132298226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Negotiating With Frictions","authors":"V. Britz","doi":"10.3929/ethz-b-000316321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000316321","url":null,"abstract":"We consider bilateral non–cooperative bargaining on the division of a surplus. Compared to the canonical bargaining game in the tradition of Rubinstein, we introduce additional sources of friction into the bargaining process: Implementation of an agreement and consumption of the surplus can only begin at discrete points in time, such as the first day of a month, quarter, or year. Bargaining rounds are of non–trivial length, so that counter–offers may be made without triggering costly delay. Communication between players is noisy: When players make offers, they are uncertain about the time it takes for the offer to arrive. We analyze delays and payoffs in the unique stationary equilibrium of the game. Frictions tend to make the bargaining process less efficient, but lead to a fairer surplus allocation. We establish conditions under which the equilibrium outcome converges to that in a canonical bargaining model as frictions become small.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132741274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labor Market Matching with Ensuing Competitive Externalities in Large Economies","authors":"","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2868962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2868962","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a general model of an economy of two connected markets: a labor market, in which a continuum of managers are to be assigned to a continuum of firms, and a goods market, in which firms play perfect output competition. A Walrasian equilibrium always exists in the model. If firm technology and human capital are complementary, in equilibrium the positive assortative matching (PAM) is stable; if substutative, the nagative assortative matching (NAM) is stable. As the unit production cost of each firm-manager pair goes to be constant, the PAM will be the unique stable matching except on a null-set.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"24 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122502536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Improved Inference on the Rank of a Matrix","authors":"Qihui Chen, Z. Fang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3177681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3177681","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops a general framework for conducting inference on the rank of an unknown matrixΠ0. A defining feature of our setup is the null hypothesis of the formH0:rank(Π0)≤r. The problem is of first‐order importance because the previous literature focuses onH0′:rank(Π0)=rby implicitly assuming awayrank(Π0)<r, which may lead to invalid rank tests due to overrejections. In particular, we show that limiting distributions of test statistics underH0′may not stochastically dominate those underrank(Π0)<r. A multiple test on the nullsrank(Π0)=0,…,r, though valid, may be substantially conservative. We employ a testing statistic whose limiting distributions underH0are highly nonstandard due to the inherent irregular natures of the problem, and then construct bootstrap critical values that deliver size control and improved power. Since our procedure relies on a tuning parameter, a two‐step procedure is designed to mitigate concerns on this nuisance. We additionally argue that our setup is also important for estimation. We illustrate the empirical relevance of our results through testing identification in linear IV models that allows for clustered data and inference on sorting dimensions in a two‐sided matching model with transferrable utility.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131369413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Theory of Stability in Matching with Incomplete Information","authors":"Yi-Chun Chen, Gaoji Hu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3384439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3384439","url":null,"abstract":"We provide a framework for studying two-sided matching markets with incomplete information. The framework accommodates two-sided incomplete information as well as heterogeneous information among the agents. We propose a notion called stability for a market state, which, based upon agents’ information structure, requires (i) individual rationality, (ii) no blocking, and (iii) information stability. The novelty of our stability notion lies in how the agents evaluate a blocking prospect in the presence of general two-sided incomplete information. We show that a stable state exists; moreover, if a state is stable, then coarsening agents’ information leads to another stable state. (JEL C78, D83)","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115124173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Selling to Advised Buyers","authors":"A. Malenko, A. Tsoy","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2701915","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2701915","url":null,"abstract":"In many cases, buyers are not informed about their valuations and rely on experts, who are informed but biased for overbidding. We study auction design when selling to such “advised buyers.” We show that a canonical dynamic auction, the English auction, has a natural equilibrium that outperforms standard static auctions in expected revenues and allocative efficiency. The ability to communicate as the auction proceeds allows for more informative communication and gives advisors the ability to persuade buyers into overbidding. The same outcome is the unique equilibrium of the English auction when bidders can commit to contracts with their advisors. (JEL D44, D82, D83, D86)","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121400697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women Are Slightly More Cooperative than Men (in One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemma Games Played Online)","authors":"V. Capraro","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3182429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3182429","url":null,"abstract":"Differences between men and women have intrigued generations of social scientists, who have found that the two sexes behave differently in settings requiring competition, risk taking, altruism, honesty, as well as many others. Yet, little is known about whether there are gender differences in cooperative behavior. Previous evidence is mixed and inconclusive. Here I shed light on this topic by analyzing the totality of studies that my research group has conducted since 2013. This is a dataset of 10,951 observations coming from 7,322 men and women living in the US, recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, and who passed four comprehension questions to make sure they understand the cooperation problem (a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma). The analysis demonstrates that women are more cooperative than men. The effect size is small (about 4 percentage points, and this might explain why previous studies failed to detect it) but highly significant (p<.0001).","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130279181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multiple Treatments with Strategic Interaction","authors":"J. Balat, Sukjin Han","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3182766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3182766","url":null,"abstract":"We develop an empirical framework to identify and estimate the effects of treatments on outcomes of interest when the treatments are the result of strategic interaction (e.g., bargaining, oligopolistic entry, peer effects). We consider a model where agents play a discrete game with complete information whose equilibrium actions (i.e., binary treatments) determine a post-game outcome in a nonseparable model with endogeneity. Due to the simultaneity in the first stage, the model as a whole is incomplete and the selection process fails to exhibit the conventional monotonicity. Without imposing parametric restrictions or large support assumptions, this poses challenges in recovering treatment parameters. To address these challenges, we first establish a monotonic pattern of the equilibria in the first-stage game in terms of the number of treatments selected. Based on this finding, we derive bounds on the average treatment effects (ATEs) under nonparametric shape restrictions and the existence of excluded exogenous variables. We show that instrument variation that compensates strategic substitution helps solve the multiple equilibria problem. We apply our method to data on airlines and air pollution in cities in the U.S. We find that (i) the causal effect of each airline on pollution is positive, and (ii) the effect is increasing in the number of firms but at a decreasing rate.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125902668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Unification of Solutions to the Bargaining Problem","authors":"Claus-Jochen Haake, C. Qin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3184007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3184007","url":null,"abstract":"We establish axioms for solutions to the bargaining problem that characterize a unique solution up to specications of the distribution and substitution parameters of the CES function. Well-known axiomatic solutions correspond to our solution with specic values for the distribution and substitution parameters. As a result our results provide a unication of solutions to the bargaining problem, which is useful for comparing and characterizing various axiomatic solutions among other applications.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133874032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Bankruptcy Problem in Financial Networks","authors":"M. Stutzer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3178065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3178065","url":null,"abstract":"The bankruptcy problem of resolving a single debt owed to multiple creditors is extended to financial networks, where there are multiple debtors and creditors.","PeriodicalId":420730,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133249370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}