Agenda restrictions in multi-issue bargaining

Abstract

We study a bilateral multi-issue bargaining procedure with complete information and endogenous agenda. In the procedure, proposals must be made on only one issue at a time, although the proposer can choose which issue to bring to the table. When bargaining frictions are small, there is a large multiplicity of equilibrium agreements, including ones with delay. However, equilibrium payoffs cannot be made arbitrarily small-perpetual disagreement cannot be supported in equilibrium. This multiplicity contrasts with the uniqueness found in the literature for a procedure where offers can be made in any subset of remaining issues. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.