The Determinants of Multilateral Bargaining: A Comprehensive Analysis of Baron and Ferejohn Majoritarian Bargaining Experiments

Abstract

We collected and analyzed the data sets of all majoritarian Baron and Ferejohn (1989 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev.) experiments through 2018. By exploiting the variation of experimental parameters such as group size and discount factor we are able to test whether or not the theoretical point predictions and comparative statics hold and find virtually no support for the theory. Novel findings are reported about the effect of group size and discounting on distribution of the surplus, the proposer's share, agreement * We would like to thank

Majoritarian Bargaining over Budgetary Divisions and Policy

“…See for example Guth and Van Damme (1998) with one passive (cannot vote) and one active recipient, Okada and Riedl (2005) with e¢ ciency trade-o¤s, and Casal, Fallucchi and Quercia (2019) in which one of the recipients is an NGO. 3 In our treatment of a budgetary division without policy information, we …nd that proposals receive on average 1.1 votes corresponding to 45% of votes against as well. Simmons, 2003).…”

“…In the treatment where the WTA could not be conditioned on what the other recipient was receiving, they …nd that the mean WTA is greater than the mean o¤er, leading to a 45% rejection rate. 3 Eliciting political preferences behaviorally is posited to overcome three potential shortcomings in stated preference elicitation (Haas and Morton, 2018). First, the low-stakes nature of survey questionnaires make them vulnerable to respondent satis…cing, which may account for the high predictive value of stated attitudes about which respondents feel strongly and the comparatively low predictive value of stated attitudes on issues about which respondents care less (Farc and Sagarin, 2009;Holbrook et al, 2016;Krosnick, 1988;Miller et al, 2016; Norris, Krosnick and Visser, 2016; Visser, Krosnick and 2 A few studies have looked at ultimatum games with more than two players.…”

“…1 Our …nding regarding the low proportion of MWCs, especially in the Budget Only Treatments, is surprising. A recent meta-analysis reports that 66 percent of all allocations in 3-player Baron and Ferejohn (1989) experiments involve sharing the fund among two players only (Baranski and Morton, 2020). These experiments allow for multiple rounds of bargaining until approval and subjects vote for a proposal upon observing it, unlike our treatments.…”

The impact of group identity on coalition formation

“…Previous BF experiments have provided important insights on how rules and incentives alter coalition formation (e.g., Diermeier and Morton, 2005; Drouvelis et al, 2010; Fréchette et al, 2003: 2; Fréchette et al, 2005). Baranski and Morton (2020) analyzed all published BF experiments up to 2018 and found that stationary subgame perfect equilibrium predictions are not strongly supported by experimental evidence, there are roughly 40% all-way split proposals in three-member groups, group size and impatience have an impact on the prevalence of minimum-winning coalitions, and the probability of delay increases as the penalty for disagreement decreases.…”

“…Coalition research has a long history in political science (Axelrod, 1970; Baron and Diermeier, 2001; de Swann, 1973; von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1953), and the seminal Baron and Ferejohn (1989) legislative bargaining model has been extended to a broad range of situations, including spatial bargaining, and bargaining over a stochastic surplus or public goods (Eraslan and Evdokimov, 2019). Experimental research in the field has grown to the extent that Baranski and Morton (2020) were able to perform a meta-analysis on the results. However, research addressing the social dynamics involved in coalition formation – identity, norms, other-regarding preferences – is still relatively scarce.…”