Reference point effects in legislative bargaining: experimental evidence

Multilateral bargaining over the division of losses

“…From the many studies about loss aversion, we know that human behavior when dealing with losses is different from that when experiencing gains. In this regard, Christiansen and Kagel (2019) is one study philosophically related to ours. They examine how the framing changes three-player bargaining behavior.…”

“…The crucial difference between our study and theirs is that we deal with the different incentive structures, so the framing does not play an important role. While the experimental design considered in Christiansen and Kagel (2019) can be regarded as a 'half-full' versus 'half-empty' glass of water, figuratively speaking, ours is a full glass of clean water versus a full glass of filthy water. In the sense that we indirectly compare an economic outcome on a gain domain with that on a loss domain, Gerardi et al ( 2016) is another closely related study.…”

Reference points in sequential bargaining: theory and experiment

“…Several experimental papers find that reference points affect the final distribution of the surplus under different bargaining protocols, for example, the papers of: Karagözoğlu and Keskin (2018a) for cooperative bargaining where bargainers choose their reference points; Sloof et al (2004), Ellingsen and Johannesson (2001, 2004), and Sonnemanns et al (2001) for one‐shot hold‐up problems, and Christiansen and Kagel (2019) for legislative bargaining. Experimental evidence on the impact of reference points in alternating‐offer bargaining, however, is scant.…”

How Do Politicians Bargain? Evidence from Ultimatum Games with Legislators in Five Countries

“…Politicians are not randomized to different matters of conflict and debate, and so in seeing how they behave in some situation, selection pressure and strategic elements keep us from understanding why they are making the decisions they make. Third, it is difficult to recruit politicians into the controlled settings that are normally used for studying bargaining in the social sciences, where research is typically conducted with non-elites (Christiansen and Kagel 2019; Frechette, Kagel, and Morelli 2005; Güth, Schmittberger, and Schwarze 1982). Taken together, these factors bound our knowledge on how politicians make decisions when they engage in bargaining.…”