Applications of Bargaining Models

提议的工作包括几个主题在谈判理论的应用，以罢工和其他纠纷的实证研究。其目的是进一步发展对计量经济学研究和政策分析有用的议价模型。这些议题包括：罢工前谈判对罢工频率的影响；细化讨价还价的损耗、筛选和信号模型的预测，并扩展到包括依赖于就业水平的保留工资的情况；走向资料中观测到的顺环发生率和沉降率的解释机制发展议价模型和适应计量经济学估计的未观察异质性规范。以前研究的数据被用来估计议价模型。附属主题包括讨价还价理论在一般讨价还价模型中的法律条款的应用，以及博弈论模型的一般公式、分析和计算中的几个相关技术问题。这个项目非常重要，因为它提供了对罢工性质的新见解，因为它使议价模型对实证研究更有用。该项目将迄今为止基于简单模型或数据描述的大量实证研究与展示罢工发生条件的严格讨价还价理论联系起来。这将是第一次尝试用严谨的理论来解释实证观察，并用实证观察来检验理论。议价理论是经济理论家用来研究广泛经济现象的主要工具之一，因此本项目对议价理论的改进将有利于许多经济研究领域。

The proposed work comprises several topics in the application of bargaining theory to empirical studies of strikes and other disputes. The aim is further development of bargaining models useful for econometric studies and for policy analysis. Among these topics are: the effect of pre-strike negotiations on the frequency of strikes; elaboration of the predictions of attrition, screening, and signaling models of bargaining, as well as extensions to include cases with reservation wages dependent on employment levels; explanatory mechanisms for the procyclic incidence and settlement rates observed in strike data; and development of bargaining models and specifications of unobserved heterogeneity adapted to econometric estimation. Data from previous studies is used to estimate a bargaining model. Subsidiary topics include application of bargaining theory to legal provisions in general bargaining models, and several related technical issues in the general formulation, analysis, and computation of game-theoretic models. This project is extremely important because it provides new insights into the nature of strikes and because it makes bargaining models more useful for empirical research. The project links a large body of empirical research based so far on simple models or data description to rigorous theories of bargaining showing conditions under which strikes would occur. This will be one of the first efforts to use rigorous theory to explain empirical observations and the empirical observations to test the theories. Bargaining theory is one of the major tools used by economic theorists to study a wide range of economic phenomena, so the improvements this project will make in bargaining theory will benefit a number of areas of economic research.