Collaborative Research: Network Formation and Bargaining with Exclusionary Commitments

许多经济活动涉及双边市场，其中市场一侧的公司与另一侧的公司形成网络。在许多这样的市场中，每一方都有少量的公司，合同是双边谈判的。均衡网络结构和贸易条件是相互交织的，并通过市场双方的买方和卖方的战略互动而出现。例如，医院与医疗保险提供商谈判价格的医疗保险市场，电视台和其他内容提供商与有线电视公司和流媒体平台谈判价格的数字媒体市场，以及下游企业与上游供应商签订合同的制造网络。该项目的主要目标是研究多个买方和多个卖方之间的讨价还价模型，其中每个代理人可能与市场另一边的其他几个代理人签订合同。我们首先要研究的一个更窄的目标是理解排他性预先承诺的作用。例如，面对多个买家的卖家可能会发现，通过承诺只与特定的买家子集进行交易来创造人为的稀缺性是有利可图的。这项研究将提供关于排除承诺的新视角，以及它们如何为形成的每一个环节塑造网络结构和贸易条件。提供一个系统的框架，分析排斥承诺和网络的形成，在“薄”市场将扩大工具包提供给应用研究人员在卫生经济学和其他双边市场，以及政策制定者和监管机构。该项目将制定一个与灵活的网络形成兼容的排斥承诺的一般定义，并将为没有外部性的环境提供最佳排斥承诺的强有力的特征。这项研究将揭示，与固定数量的买家进行灵活交易，使卖家能够获得更高的利润，而不是威胁要排除特定的买家。在均衡中，一些买家肯定会被包括在内，并与卖家平分边际盈余。估值较低的买家被排除在正概率之外，与这些买家的讨价还价是由一个新的顺序外部期权原理驱动的。结论将被扩展到设置与外部性，在市场的同一侧的代理人被分为不同的类别，和估值是相互依赖的内部和跨类别。在早期的理论工作和应用中，人们一直严重依赖于“纳什-纳什”讨价还价的解决方案和密切相关的概念。初步分析表明，这种依赖可能是过度的，纳什-纳什框架可能会导致与合理和熟悉的谈判协议产生的预测不一致的结论。开发基于自然协议的多个买方和卖方之间的新的讨价还价模型将有助于一个仍然缺乏固定理论的领域。该奖项反映了NSF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。

A lot of economic activity involves two-sided markets in which firms on one side of the market form networks with firms on the other side. In many of these markets there are small numbers of firms on each side, and contracts are negotiated bilaterally. The equilibrium network structure and terms of trade are intertwined and emerge through the strategic interactions of buyers and sellers on both sides of the market. Examples include the market for health insurance in which hospitals negotiate rates with health insurance providers, the market for digital media in which TV stations and other content providers negotiate prices with cable companies and streaming platforms, and manufacturing networks in which downstream firms sign contracts with upstream suppliers. The broad goal of this project is to investigate models of bargaining between multiple buyers and multiple sellers in which each agent may potentially contract with several others on the opposite side of the market. A narrower goal, and the one we will first investigate, is to understand the role of exclusionary pre-commitments. For instance, a seller facing multiple buyers may find it profitable to create artificial scarcity by committing to trade only with specific subsets of buyers. The research will offer new perspectives on exclusion commitments and how they shape network structure and terms of trade for each link that forms. Providing a systematic framework for analyzing exclusion commitments and network formation in “thin” markets will expand the toolkit available to applied researchers in health economics and other two-sided markets as well as to policymakers and regulators. The project will develop a general definition of exclusion commitments compatible with flexible network formation, and will provide powerful characterizations of optimal exclusion commitments for settings without externalities. The research will reveal that flexibly trading with a fixed number of buyers enables sellers to extract higher profits than threatening to exclude particular buyers. In equilibrium, some buyers are included with certainty and split the marginal surplus equally with the seller. Buyers with lower valuations are excluded with positive probability; bargaining with these buyers is driven by a novel sequential outside option principle. The conclusions will be extended to settings with externalities in which agents on the same side of the market are divided into different categories, and valuations are interdependent within and across categories. In earlier theoretical work and applications, there has been heavy reliance on the “Nash-in-Nash” bargaining solution and closely related concepts. Preliminary analysis suggests that this reliance might be excessive, and that the Nash-in-Nash framework could lead to conclusions at variance with the predictions generated by plausible and familiar bargaining protocols. Developing new models of bargaining between multiple buyers and sellers based on natural protocols will contribute to an area that still lacks a settled theory.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.