Efficiency versus equality in bargaining

We consider how the outcome of bargaining varies with changes in the trade-off between equality, efficiency, and total-earnings maximization. We observe that subjects avoid an equal-earnings outcome if it is Pareto inefficient; a large proportion of bargaining pairs avoid an equal and Pareto efficie...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Galeotti, Fabio, Montero, Maria, Poulsen, Anders
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press 2018
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50482/
Description
Summary:We consider how the outcome of bargaining varies with changes in the trade-off between equality, efficiency, and total-earnings maximization. We observe that subjects avoid an equal-earnings outcome if it is Pareto inefficient; a large proportion of bargaining pairs avoid an equal and Pareto efficient outcome in favor of one giving unequal and total-earnings maximizing payoffs, and this proportion increases when unequal outcomes imply larger earnings to one of the players, even though this also implies higher inequality; finally, we document a compromise effect that violates the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition.