Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments

We study a legislative bargaining game in which failure to agree in a given round may result in a breakdown of negotiations. In that case, each player receives an exogenous `disagreement value'. We characterize the set of stationary subgame perfect equilibria under all q-majority rules. Under u...

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Main Authors: Miller, Luis, Montero, Maria, Vanberg, Christoph
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48836/
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author Miller, Luis
Montero, Maria
Vanberg, Christoph
author_facet Miller, Luis
Montero, Maria
Vanberg, Christoph
author_sort Miller, Luis
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We study a legislative bargaining game in which failure to agree in a given round may result in a breakdown of negotiations. In that case, each player receives an exogenous `disagreement value'. We characterize the set of stationary subgame perfect equilibria under all q-majority rules. Under unanimity rule, equilibrium payoffs are strictly increasing in disagreement values. Under all less-than-unanimity rules, expected payoffs are either decreasing or first increasing and then decreasing in disagreement values. We conduct experiments involving three players using majority and unanimity rule, finding qualitative support for several, but not all, of our main predictions. Having a high disagreement value is indeed an advantage under unanimity. Under majority, the player with the highest disagreement value is more likely to be excluded, but this does not consistently result in a lower average payoff.
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spelling nottingham-488362020-05-04T19:29:09Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48836/ Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments Miller, Luis Montero, Maria Vanberg, Christoph We study a legislative bargaining game in which failure to agree in a given round may result in a breakdown of negotiations. In that case, each player receives an exogenous `disagreement value'. We characterize the set of stationary subgame perfect equilibria under all q-majority rules. Under unanimity rule, equilibrium payoffs are strictly increasing in disagreement values. Under all less-than-unanimity rules, expected payoffs are either decreasing or first increasing and then decreasing in disagreement values. We conduct experiments involving three players using majority and unanimity rule, finding qualitative support for several, but not all, of our main predictions. Having a high disagreement value is indeed an advantage under unanimity. Under majority, the player with the highest disagreement value is more likely to be excluded, but this does not consistently result in a lower average payoff. Elsevier 2018-01-31 Article PeerReviewed Miller, Luis, Montero, Maria and Vanberg, Christoph (2018) Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments. Games and Economic Behavior, 107 . pp. 60-92. ISSN 0899-8256 legislative bargaining; majority rule; unanimity rule; risk of breakdown; experiments http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617301963?via%3Dihub doi:10.1016/j.geb.2017.11.003 doi:10.1016/j.geb.2017.11.003
spellingShingle legislative bargaining; majority rule; unanimity rule; risk of breakdown; experiments
Miller, Luis
Montero, Maria
Vanberg, Christoph
Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title_full Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title_fullStr Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title_full_unstemmed Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title_short Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
title_sort legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: theory and experiments
topic legislative bargaining; majority rule; unanimity rule; risk of breakdown; experiments
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48836/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48836/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48836/