Department of Agricultural &
Resource Economics, UCB
CUDARE Working Papers
(University of California, Berkeley)
Year 
Paper 
A Noncooperative Model of Collective
Decision Making: A Multilateral
Bargaining Approach
Gordon C. Rausser
Leo K. Simon
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
This paper is posted at the eScholarship Repository, University of California.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/are ucb/620
c
Copyright 1992
by the authors.
A Noncooperative Model of Collective
Decision Making: A Multilateral
Bargaining Approach
Abstract
This paper extends the Stahl-Rubinstein model of bilateral bargaining to
incorporate many players and multidimensional issue spaces. A central feature
of our framework is that in each round of negotiations, a proposer is selected
randomly. Our bargaining model consists of a sequence of finite-horizon games,
in which the horizon increases without bound. A solution to our model is a limit
of equilibrium outcomes for the finite horizon games. A necessary condition for
existence of a deterministic solution is that the limit outcome belongs to the core
of the underlying bargaining problem. Solutions, if they exist, are generically
unique. Two sets of sufficiency conditions for existence are presented. The paper
concludes with examples and applications. In particular, we consider bipolar
negotiations between two factions, and show that there is a positive relationship
between the cohesiveness of one faction relative to the other and its effectiveness
in securing the common goals to its members.