Masaryk University Economic Seminars

We study how adding structure to bargaining changes both outcomes and behavior, bridging the experimental literatures on unstructured negotiation and tightly structured bargaining games. In an in-person lab experiment, pairs bargain dynamically under a deadline over a finite set of contracts with complete information. Holding this environment constant, we compare three processes: Unstructured Bargaining (UB), Alternating Offers (AO), and Voting with Alternating Offers and Vetoes (VAOV). We find that appropriately combining structural elements can mitigate disagreement—VAOV yields lower disagreement than AO, especially in later rounds—yet introduces a tradeoff: conditional on agreement, reaching “good” (efficient) agreements becomes harder, with VAOV exhibiting more inefficient outcomes. Behavior adjusts to the imposed rules in non-monotonic ways, with proposal activity and dynamics differing sharply across structures. The results highlight tensions between steering parties toward agreement and increasing cognitive and strategic demands, which are relevant from an economic design perspective.