Bargaining in the shadow of a commitment problem

Abstract

This paper reports results from laboratory experiments on how commitment problems affect bargaining choices. Subjects are randomly assigned the conditions that produce a commitment problem in order to estimate the effect the commitment problem condition has on bargaining behavior. The empirical results suggest subjects are consistently responsive to the commitment problem condition. When presented with a commitment problem, most subjects identify the condition and choose the present day lottery over future negotiation. Moreover, subjects not exposed to the commitment problem condition bargain as if they were playing the one-stage ultimatum game. Subjects in both games are responsive to their own costs rather than their opponents, playing as if this complete information game were in an incomplete information setting.

Political Psychology in International Relations: Beyond the Paradigms

“…Moreover, psychology and rational choice are also not as far apart as earlier research often suggested. Indeed, a growing body of work is now attempting to explore the intersection of psychology and rationality by rediscovering rational choice's psychological roots (e.g., McDermott 2004a, Mercer 2005b, Rathbun et al 2017, turning to economics-style bargaining experiments to test the behavioral implications of formal models (Kertzer & Rathbun 2015;Quek 2017;Reed et al 2016;Tingley 2011;Tingley & Walter 2011a,b), or incorporating psychological insights into bargaining models or game theoretic work (e.g., Little & Zeitzoff 2017, O'Neill 1999, Streich & Levy 2016. Second, as psychology has become more influential in IR and IR has become less sectarian and more theoretically pluralist (Dunne et al 2013, Lake 2013, an important swath of contemporary IR research has begun to draw on psychology even without labeling itself as such: Much of the new literature on civil wars, for example, centers on questions about the role of identity and group cohesion in conflict, even as it avoids much of the formal verbiage of psychological studies of intergroup relations (e.g., Cederman et al 2013, Cohen 2017, Harris & Findley 2014.…”