When a job-seeker and an employer meet, find a prospective surplus, and bargain over the wage, conditions in the outside labor market, including especially unemployment, may be irrelevant. The job-seeker's threat point in the bargain is to delay bargaining, not to terminate bargaining and resume...

Can sellers credibly signal their private information to reduce frictions in negotiations? Guided by a simple cheap-talk model, we posit that impatient sellers use round numbers to signal their willingness to cut prices in order to sell faster, and test its implications using millions of online...

Bargaining breakdown--whether as delay, conflict, or missing trade--plagues bargaining in environments with incomplete information. Can a bargaining environment that facilitates or restricts communication alleviate these costs? We exploit a unique opportunity to study this question using real...

Bargaining breakdown—whether as delay, conflict, or missing trade—plagues bargaining in environments with incomplete information. Can a bargaining environment that facilitates or restricts communication alleviate these costs? We exploit a unique opportunity to study this question using real...

Can sellers credibly signal their private information to reduce frictions in negotiations? Guided by a simple cheap-talk model, we posit that impatient sellers use round numbers to signal their willingness to cut prices in order to sell faster, and test its implications using millions of online...