Bargaining with hard evidence

This article studies how the presence of concealable hard evidence affects the timing of agreement and the size and distribution of surplus in bargaining. A buyer and a seller receive randomly arriving, verifiable, but concealable evidence about the value of a tradable good. Each party discloses ind...

Full beskrivning

Bibliografiska uppgifter
Huvudupphovsmän: Eso, E, Wallace, C
Materialtyp: Journal article
Språk:English
Publicerad: Wiley 2018
_version_ 1826272953213386752
author Eso, E
Wallace, C
author_facet Eso, E
Wallace, C
author_sort Eso, E
collection OXFORD
description This article studies how the presence of concealable hard evidence affects the timing of agreement and the size and distribution of surplus in bargaining. A buyer and a seller receive randomly arriving, verifiable, but concealable evidence about the value of a tradable good. Each party discloses individually favourable information but conceals signals that benefit the other side, giving rise to mutual suspicion; the seller repeatedly posts prices valid for one period. In the leading case of interest with a finite horizon and sufficiently patient players, the equilibrium is characterised by an interval of skimming (a sequence of prices acceptable only to a buyer who has learned that the good’s value is high) concluded by a single settlement period in which agreement is reached for sure. The length of delay until agreement and the corresponding efficiency loss are decreasing in the time horizon and in the abilities of the trading parties to identify the good’s value, but increasing in impatience. An arbitrarily long time horizon leads to immediate agreement if the parties are even slightly impatient and interaction is frequent enough; if the parties are perfectly patient, there is no trade without evidence disclosure.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T22:20:41Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:54f348db-c2cb-424a-a6fc-f2330533fc7e
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T22:20:41Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Wiley
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:54f348db-c2cb-424a-a6fc-f2330533fc7e2022-03-26T16:40:54ZBargaining with hard evidenceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:54f348db-c2cb-424a-a6fc-f2330533fc7eEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2018Eso, EWallace, CThis article studies how the presence of concealable hard evidence affects the timing of agreement and the size and distribution of surplus in bargaining. A buyer and a seller receive randomly arriving, verifiable, but concealable evidence about the value of a tradable good. Each party discloses individually favourable information but conceals signals that benefit the other side, giving rise to mutual suspicion; the seller repeatedly posts prices valid for one period. In the leading case of interest with a finite horizon and sufficiently patient players, the equilibrium is characterised by an interval of skimming (a sequence of prices acceptable only to a buyer who has learned that the good’s value is high) concluded by a single settlement period in which agreement is reached for sure. The length of delay until agreement and the corresponding efficiency loss are decreasing in the time horizon and in the abilities of the trading parties to identify the good’s value, but increasing in impatience. An arbitrarily long time horizon leads to immediate agreement if the parties are even slightly impatient and interaction is frequent enough; if the parties are perfectly patient, there is no trade without evidence disclosure.
spellingShingle Eso, E
Wallace, C
Bargaining with hard evidence
title Bargaining with hard evidence
title_full Bargaining with hard evidence
title_fullStr Bargaining with hard evidence
title_full_unstemmed Bargaining with hard evidence
title_short Bargaining with hard evidence
title_sort bargaining with hard evidence
work_keys_str_mv AT esoe bargainingwithhardevidence
AT wallacec bargainingwithhardevidence