Collaborative Research: Reputational Bargaining with Two-Sided Asymmetric Information About Fundamentals

经济学家用来预测双边谈判结果的大多数模型都假设信息对称：谈判双方知道他们需要知道的关于对方的一切。但真实的世界中的讨价还价通常是在双边信息不对称的情况下进行的：双方都希望更多地了解对方的目标、优先事项、优势和劣势。几十年来，经济学家们一直没有把握住这些情况。该奖项资助了一种新的方法来模拟双边谈判与双边不对称信息。它大量借鉴了25年前开始的声誉形成文献，最初用于研究进入先前垄断的市场。这个想法是，认识到讨价还价者形成声誉的动机（因为固执，或报复，等等）不仅丰富了分析，而且给出了更清晰的结果。希望能更好地理解讨价还价者在这些丰富的信息环境中的行为。 要研究的谈判问题出现在国家之间、监管者和公司之间、供应商和生产商之间以及公司和工会之间。更好地理解谈判将为制定劳动法，国际法和监管政策以及许多其他应用提供有价值的见解。

Most of the models economists use to predict outcomes of bilateral bargaining assume symmetric information: the two bargainers know everything they need to know about one another. But bargaining in the real world is usually conducted under two-sided asymmetric information: both parties wish they knew more about the other side's goals, priorities, strengths and weaknesses. These situations have eluded economists' grasp for many decades. This award funds work on a new approach to modeling bilateral bargaining with two-sided asymmetric information. It borrows heavily from the reputation formation literature initiated twenty-five years ago and first used to study entry into previously monopolized markets. The idea is that recognizing bargainer's incentives to form reputations (for being stubborn, or retaliatory, and so on) not only enriches the analysis, but also gives clearer results. The hope is to better understand how bargainers in these rich informational environments behave. The kinds of bargaining problems to be studied arise between countries, between regulators and firms, between suppliers and producers, and between firms and unions. A better understanding of bargaining will provide valuable insights for the formulation of labor law, international law, and regulatory policy, among many other applications.