Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance,
Stockholm School of Economics

No 61: The Evolution of Bargaining Behavior

Tore Ellingsen ()
Additional contact information
Tore Ellingsen: Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: The paper examines the evolutionary foundations of bilateral bargaining behavior, emphasizing the trade-off between commitment and flexibility. When the pie's size is certain, evolution favors the "fair" strategy; accept any share greater than or equal to one half, reject any smaller share. The unique outcome is hence an equal split. In noisy environments, more flexible behavior tends to appear in equilibrium. Since flexibility attracts greediness, there is then a positive probability of conflict.

Keywords: Bargaining; evolution; commitment; Coase Theorem

JEL-codes: C78

16 pages, July 1995

Download statistics

Published as
Tore Ellingsen, (1997), 'The Evolution of Bargaining Behavior', Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol 112, pages 581-602

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Helena Lundin ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:hastef:0061This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:15:03.