Collaborative Research on Reputation and Bargaining

贸易和交换活动是经济学的基础，然而，直到最近，几乎没有研究可能是最纯粹的贸易形式，即双边讨价还价。大约十年前，一项研究的突破引发了关于这一主题的大量论文，所有这些论文都以无数的变化强调了谈判者达成协议时相对轻微的不耐烦的作用，以及讨价还价过程的精确协议。这一理论在产业组织、国际贸易与金融、政治经济学、宏观经济学等各个领域得到了广泛而有益的应用。这个项目从一个新的角度重新解决了这个基本问题，用对对手战略姿态的不确定性取代了旧理论之间的轻微不耐烦。也就是说，在很小的概率下，其他玩家可能是许多“非理性”类型中的一员。粗略地说，它传达的信息是：讨价还价并不是一点点不耐烦，也不是要约和还价的确切协议；相反，它是由各种各样的虚张声势和装腔作势等因素驱动的。本着这种精神，该模型强调了因果经验主义和个人内省都表明的声誉效应在讨价还价中很重要。到目前为止，这种方法似乎非常有前途，并且已经对一些简单的案例进行了完整的分析。本项目将把这些初步结果扩展到更一般的设置。如前所述，早期的议价模式在许多领域得到了卓有成效的应用；以声誉为基础的讨价还价模式可能同样有用。* * *

9311089 Gul The activities of trade and exchange are fundamental to economics, yet, until very recently, there was little research on perhaps the most pure form of trading, i.e., bilateral bargaining. A research breakthrough, about a decade ago, led to a flood of papers on this topic, all of which emphasized in myriad variations, the role of the relative slight impatience of bargainers to come to agreement, and the precise protocol of the bargaining process. This theory has been widely and usefully applied in a variety of fields, including industrial organization, international trade and finance, political economy, macroeconomics, and so on. This project readdresses this basic question from a new perspective and replaces the slight impatience between offers of the old theory with slight uncertainty about the strategic posture of one's opponent. That is, with small probability the other player may be one of many "irrational" types. The message very crudely put is this: Bargaining isn't so much about slight impatience and the exact protocol of offers and counteroffers; rather, it is driven by such factors as bluffing and posturing of various sorts. In this spirit, the model developed stresses reputational effects which both causal empiricism and personal introspection suggest are important in bargaining. So far this approach seems very promising, and some simple cases have been completely analyzed. This project will extend these preliminary results to more general settings. As noted, the earlier bargaining models have been fruitfully applied in many areas; a reputation-based bargaining paradigm will be potentially as useful. ***