Collaborative Research: Veto Bargaining: Delegation and Non-Coasian Dynamics

该奖项资助了关于否决权议价的研究。否决权谈判指的是一个代理人或团体可以提出建议，但必须由另一个代理人或团体批准的情况。应用可以在社会科学的许多领域找到：立法机构（例如，美国国会）提出的法案，行政人员（例如，总统）可以否决；刑事检察官提出指控，法官和陪审团决定是否对被告定罪；ceo和董事会需要股东在某些决定上签字；招聘委员会会提出候选人，但是否聘用的决定取决于组织的其他部门。这项研究的核心问题将涉及提议者面临的不确定性，即那些拥有否决权的人的偏好——相对于现状，他们愿意接受哪些提议。利用博弈论，pi将从理论上研究这种不确定性如何影响讨价还价和最终结果。他们将探讨在上面提到的一些背景下的应用和影响。希望本研究能够对否决权议价的理论和实践理解有所贡献，并提供一些方法论上的见解。ppi将在行动或政策的“空间维度”上采用提议-否决谈判的框架；也就是说，代理有单峰偏好。Vetoer的偏好是她的私人信息。项目的第一部分将采用一种机制设计方法，在申请人完全承诺时确定申请人的最佳结果。这种方法在规范和积极方面都是有用的。将建立一个连接以实现最佳委托。除其他外，结果将表明，在合理的条件下，不完整的信息会极大地侵蚀提议者的议价能力，同时仍会产生有效的结果。将获得关于提议者的风险厌恶和提议者与否决者之间偏好的一致性的比较静态数据。研究项目的第二部分将研究一个动态模型，其中提案人有有限的承诺。也就是说，如果目前的提案被否决，他/她不能承诺在下一个时期不带着提案回到否决票。项目第一部分的结果将用于理解有限承诺如何影响讨价还价。当玩家有耐心时，一个熟悉的直觉是科斯动力学：不管承诺解决方案是什么，提议者缺乏承诺会削弱他/她的议价能力，导致Vetoer得到理想的结果，也许是对提议者的最小“外部选择”收益取模。pi预期表明，由于单峰偏好，这种直觉在这里失败了。特别是，在某些条件下，预计会出现非高斯动态，提议者获得她的承诺回报。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds research on the topic of veto bargaining. Veto bargaining concerns situations in which one agent or group can make proposals but another must approve them. Applications can be found in many areas of the social sciences: legislatures (e.g., U.S. Congress) propose bills that executives (e.g., the President) can veto; criminal prosecutors bring charges that judges and juries decide whether to convict a defendant on; CEOs and Boards need shareholders to sign off on certain decisions; and search committees put forward candidates but the decision of whether to hire rests elsewhere in an organization. The central issue the research will take up concerns the uncertainty proposers face about the preferences of those with veto power—which proposals they are willing to accept relative to the status quo. Using game theory, the PIs will theoretically investigate how such uncertainty affects bargaining and the resulting outcomes. They will explore applications and implications in some of the contexts noted above. It is hoped that the research will contribute to both the theoretical and practical understanding of veto bargaining, and provide some methodological insights.The PIs will adopt a framework of Proposer-Vetoer bargaining over a “spatial dimension” of actions or policies; i.e., the agents have single-peaked preferences. Vetoer’s preferences are her private information. The first part of the project will take a mechanism design approach to identify Proposer-optimal outcomes when Proposer has full commitment. This approach will be useful both normatively and positively. A connection will be made to optimal delegation. Among other things, the results will show that under reasonable conditions incomplete information can dramatically corrode Proposer’s bargaining power, while still resulting in efficient outcomes. Comparative statics will be obtained concerning the Proposer’s risk aversion and the alignment of preferences between Proposer and Vetoer. The second part of the research project will study a dynamic model in which Proposer has limited commitment. That is, he/she cannot commit to not coming back to Vetoer with a proposal in the next period should the current proposal be rejected. The results from the first part of the project will be used to understand how bargaining is affected by limited commitment. A familiar intuition when players are patient is that of Coasian dynamics: regardless of the commitment solution, Proposer’s lack of commitment should erode his/her bargaining power and lead to Vetoer getting her ideal outcome, perhaps modulo some minimum “outside option” payoff to Proposer. The PIs anticipate showing that this intuition fails here, owing to single-peaked preferences. In particular, it is anticipated that under some conditions there will be non-Coasian dynamics, with Proposer obtaining her commitment payoff.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.