Bargaining and negative externalities

Abstract

Two important issues in distributive bargaining theory are, first, the conditions under which a negotiation breakdown occurs, and second, what and how source of parties’ bargaining powers influences the properties of a possible agreement. Research based on classic Nash’s demand game has explored both questions by sophisticating the original game a lot. As an attempt to deal with both issues under a simpler framework, we propose a modification of the Nash demand game in which bargainers suffer negative externalities proportional to the share of the surplus captured by their rival. It is shown that the negotiator experiencing a relatively high externality level has greater bargaining power and thus, appropriates a larger proportion of the surplus at stake. However, if externality levels are sufficiently high, bargaining powers become incompatible and a negotiation breakdown emerges from the bargaining process. We compare our results with the previous literature, and argue that they can be especially relevant in negotiations held under highly polarized environments.