Economic Experimental Results on Multilateral Bargaining

In a companion series of papers, we have described a new bargaining institution and the design of laboratory experiments to assess its performance (see Rausser and Simon [1991] and Harrison and Simon [1991]). In this paper we describe and evaluate the first series of pilot experiments. In section 2 we briefly describe the general Multilateral Bargaining institution once again, so as to make the present discussion self-contained. In Section 3 we run through in some detail the numerical solution to one parameterized version of that model, to familiarize the reader with the structure and workings of the model. In Section 4 we discuss some of the conceptual issues that arise in evaluating the performance of the institution in our experiments. In Section 5 we evaluate the pilot experiments using the procedures developed. Finally, in Section 6 we outline the implications of our results for the next stage of experimentation.