On bargaining norms as solutions to cost-minimization problems

This paper studies bargaining outcomes in economies in which agents may be able to impose outcomes that deviate from the relevant social norms but incur costs when they do so. It characterizes bargaining outcomes that are easiest for a society to sustain as part of a social norm that everybody will want to follow. Depending on technological assumptions, the approach yields the Nash bargaining solution, the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution, the equal monetary split, and other bargaining solutions. Set-valued solution concepts are derived that are relevant if one is unable or unwilling to make specific technological assumptions.