We study decentralized task coordination. Tasks are of varying complexity and agents asymmetric: agents capable of completing high-level tasks may also take on tasks originally contracted by lower-level agents, facilitating system-wide cost reductions. We suggest a family of decentralized...

We introduce a model of product development in a firm. Our model describes the process as a multi-stage contest (i.e., race) with an endogenous length (with one stage or two stages) between two workers. We model the payments to workers from the new product using the normatively appealing Nash...

The Nash program is an important research agenda initiated in Nash (Econometrica 21:128-140, 1953) in order to bridge the gap between the noncooperative and cooperative counterparts of game theory. The program is thus turning sixty-seven years old, but I will argue it is not ready for...

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...

In non-cooperative bargaining games in the tradition of Rubinstein, the proposer derives bargaining power from the prospect of a costly delay which would follow the rejection of a proposal. We consider a unanimity bargaining game in which the proposer can strategically choose to prolong this...

A bargainer uses "take it or leave it" offers to signal that he is not willing to make further concessions (commitment threat) and that he will leave the bargaining table unless his demand is accepted (exit threat). This paper investigates the impact of these threats on rational negotiators'...

We analyze a bargaining model where there is a long-term relationship between a seller and a buyer and there is bargaining over a sequence of surpluses that arrives at fixed points in time. Markov Perfect Equilibria are analyzed and equilibrium payoffs characterized. The transfers between the...

We study strategies with one–period recall in the context of a general class of multilateral bargaining games. A strategy has one–period recall if actions in a particular period are only conditioned on information in the previous and the current period. We show that if players are...

We report an experiment designed to study bargaining behavior between one buyer and multiple sellers with complementarity and how it is influenced by fairness concern and information transparency. We base our setup on a structured alternating-offer bargaining model in which a buyer procures...

Subgame perfect equilibrium predictions of ultimatum bargaining games correspond poorly to the data gathered from human subjects in laboratory environments. Attempts to reconcile this discrepancy have taken one or more of three routes: (1) expanding the agent foresight and scope of decisions,...