Abstract: | A bstract Non-economic social phenomena have been, and are being, explored with analytic methods drawn from economic analysis. Two such analytic concepts, indifference curves and offer curves, have proved useful in such efforts. The concepts are integrated here within a specific formal model which is held to be useful in exploring the central social and political process of bargaining. The impact of three variables–preference, impatience (or time), and reciprocal demand intensity–on political bargaining is shown. The framework provides a scheme around which empirical research can be organized to assist in the integration of economic with other social science theory. |