The relationship between a buyer and its suppliers is important and often relies on factors beyond the terms of a contractual agreement. Buyers can therefore benefit from identifying trustworthy suppliers. We argue that pre-contractual actions by the supplier, for example making costly...

We study experimentally bargaining in a multiple-tier supply chain with horizontal competition and sequential bargaining between tiers. Our treatments vary the cost differences between firms in tiers 1 and 2. We measure how these underlying costs influence the efficiency, negotiated prices and...