The Role of Risk Preferences in Bargaining When Acceptance of a Proposal Requires Less than Unanimous Approval.

The role of risk preferences in determining the outcome to bargaining is examined for the case in which acceptance of a proposal requires less than unanimous approval. Using an n-agent extension of the Stahl-Rubinstein alternative offer model, we find that risk preferences play a fundamentally different role when bargaining is settled using a nonunanimity voting rule. Risk preferences determine not only an agent's reservation price but also the likelihood that he is made part of the winning coalition. An implication of this analysis is that when the preferences of the agents are not too diverse, it is advantageous for an agent to be relatively risk-averse. Copyright 1990 by Kluwer Academic Publishers