Given n agents with von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions who wish to divide m commodities, consider the n-person noncooperative game with strategies consisting of concave, increasing von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions, and whose outcomes are the relative utilitarian solution. It is...

Prior research on 'strategic voting' has reached the conclusion that unanimity rule is uniquely bad: it results in destruction of information, and hence makes voters worse off. We show that this conclusion depends critically on the assumption that the issue being voted on is exogenous, i.e.,...

Prior research on quot;strategic votingquot; has reached the conclusion that unanimity rule is uniquely bad: it results in destruction of information, and hence makes voters worse off. We show that this conclusion depends critically on the assumption that the issue being voted on is exogenous,...

This article surveys the theoretical literature on legislative bargaining with endogenous status-quo. These are the legislative bargaining situations in which in each period a new policy is decided and the policy implemented in the event of no agreement is endogenously determined by the outcome...

Theories of multilateral bargaining and coalition formation applied to legislatures predict that parties' seat shares determine their bargaining power. We present findings that are difficult to reconcile with this prediction. We use data from 2,898 municipal Spanish elections in which two...

The purpose of this paper is to identify learning in games in experimental economic settings, and apply their results to real multilateral trade negotiations, such as the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) in the World Trade Organizations (WTO). This paper argues that the structure of games including...

The purpose of this paper identifies learning in games in the experimental economic settings, and applies their results on real multilateral trade negotiations. This paper argues that structure of games including a veto player (Veto games) are similar to real multilateral trade negotiations in...

Recently, both theoretical and experimental literatures have incorporated the ability of strategic players to communicate verbally prior to choosing their actions. We design an experiment to show how and why presence and type of communication matters. We use a multilateral bargaining setting,...

We experimentally study unanimity and majority voting rules in multilateral bargaining environments with stochastic future surplus. In these settings, reaching agreement when expected future surplus is sufficiently higher than the current surplus is inefficient. Theoretically, such...

Conventional wisdom says that economic surplus is created when the cost of litigation is foregone in favor of settlement, a theory flowing from the Coase Theorem. The cost-benefit analysis weighs settlement against the expected value of litigation net of transaction cost. This calculus yields...