"Do Norms Against Threats have Real Effects? Comparing Bargaining Solutions in the Shadow of Conflict".

In many economic environments agents make costly and irreversible investments (in "guns") that may enhance their respective threat payoffs but also shrink the utility possibilities set. In such settings, with variable threats and a variable utility possibilities set, it becomes possible to rank different bargaining solutions in term of their efficiency properties. We compare bargaining solutions within a wide class in which the influence of the threat point on the bargaining outcome varies across solutions.