Files

Abstract

The culture of private negotiation leads parties to agreements below a price that anchors beginning bids and offers. Possible anchors are a list price or suggested retail price. The anchor may be endogenous, e.g., the average reported trade price from previous trading activity. An endogenous anchor may cause a downward or upward drift in negotiated prices. Using bilateral bargaining data from laboratory experimental markets, this paper demonstrates how price information reports create drifts in negotiated prices. A downward drift is robust and causes sharp declines in total market surplus. Also, relative earnings are distributed toward buyers and away from sellers.

Details

PDF

Statistics

from
to
Export
Download Full History