I study a situation where two players disagree on the division of a good. In the first of two stages, the players can divide the good peacefully between them by signing a contract. If either or both players reject the contract, they must engage in a costly contest over the good. One of the...

In a recent paper Konrad and Thum (2014) present a model that shows that unilateral pre-commitment reduces the likelihood of agreement in bilateral negotiations over the provision of a public good when parties have private information over their contribution costs. We test the model in a...