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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Economics

2010

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Bargaining

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The Role Of Commitment In Bilateral Trade, Dino Gerardi, Johannes Hörner, Lucas Maestri May 2010

The Role Of Commitment In Bilateral Trade, Dino Gerardi, Johannes Hörner, Lucas Maestri

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper solves for the set of equilibrium payoffs in bargaining with interdependent values when the informed party makes all offers, as discounting vanishes. The seller of a good is informed of its quality, which affects both his cost and the buyer’s valuation, but the buyer is not. To characterize this payoff set, we derive an upper bound, using mechanism design with limited commitment. We then prove that this upper bound is tight, by showing that all its extreme points are equilibrium payoffs. Our results shed light on the role of different forms of commitment on the bargaining process. In …


The Role Of Commitment In Bilateral Trade, Dino Gerardi, Johannes Hörner, Lucas Maestri Mar 2010

The Role Of Commitment In Bilateral Trade, Dino Gerardi, Johannes Hörner, Lucas Maestri

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the buyer-seller problem under different levels of commitment. The seller is informed of the quality of the good, which affects both his cost and the buyer’s valuation, but the buyer is not. We characterize the allocations that can be achieved through mechanisms in which, unlike with full commitment, the buyer has the option to “walk away” after observing a given offer. We further characterize the equilibrium payoffs that can be achieved in the bargaining game in which the seller makes all the offers, as the discount factor goes to one. This allows us to identify how different levels …