Bargaining in Uncertain Environments: A Systematic Distortion of Perfect Equilibrium Demands

We present data supporting the notion that subjects distort monotonically subgame perfect equilibrium demands in two-person discount bargaining games, where, in addition to the traditional offer counter-offer sequence of moves, a player who rejects an offer may either be forced out of the bargaining or be given the option to opt out. Subjects also exhibit behavioral adaptivity—learning from past demands in a search for the highest acceptable demand. These reuslts are consistent with previous experimental evidence for these types of games, but stand in sharp contrast to those obtained in discount bargaining where side options are not available.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, C78.