In many bargaining situations a third party is authorized to impose a backstop position on the bargainers. Prominent examples include governments who use collaborative policymaking between stakeholders to set public policy, but also compulsory arbitration in labour negotiations. Axiomatic models...

In some bargaining situations – for example, collaborative policy-making and compulsory arbitration – a third party imposes a backstop position that differs from the status quo. Axiomatic models of cooperative bargaining presume that the status quo in such cases will have no effect...