Bargaining with Deadlines

We study a dynamic model of pre-trial negotiations in which a privately-informed defendant bargains over a possible settlement offer with a plaintiff. We characterize the unique equlibrium limit of a sequence of games as the plaintiff can make more and more frequent offers and discuss under what conditions one can expect a deadline effect - i.e. a positive probability mass of agreement right before the deadline. We discuss connections to the generalized Coase Conjecture.