IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v144y2009i4p1397-1420.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mediation, arbitration and negotiation

Author

Listed:
  • Goltsman, Maria
  • Hörner, Johannes
  • Pavlov, Gregory
  • Squintani, Francesco

Abstract

We compare three common dispute resolution processes - negotiation, mediation, and arbitration - in the framework of Crawford and Sobel [V. Crawford, J. Sobel, Strategic information transmission, Econometrica 50 (6) (1982) 1431-1451]. Under negotiation, the two parties engage in (possibly arbitrarily long) face-to-face cheap talk. Under mediation, the parties communicate with a neutral third party who makes a non-binding recommendation. Under arbitration, the two parties commit to conform to the third party recommendation. We characterize and compare the optimal mediation and arbitration procedures. Both mediators and arbitrators should optimally filter information, but mediators should also add noise to it. We find that unmediated negotiation performs as well as mediation if and only if the degree of conflict between the parties is low.

Suggested Citation

  • Goltsman, Maria & Hörner, Johannes & Pavlov, Gregory & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "Mediation, arbitration and negotiation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1397-1420, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:4:p:1397-1420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(09)00032-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vijay Krishna & John Morgan, 2008. "Contracting for information under imperfect commitment," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 905-925, December.
    2. Ricardo Alonso & Niko Matouschek, 2007. "Relational delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 1070-1089, December.
    3. Ricardo Alonso & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "Optimal Delegation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 259-293.
    4. , & , J. & ,, 2007. "Noisy talk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(4), December.
    5. Kovác, Eugen & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2009. "Stochastic mechanisms in settings without monetary transfers: The regular case," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1373-1395, July.
    6. Myerson, Roger B., 1982. "Optimal coordination mechanisms in generalized principal-agent problems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 67-81, June.
    7. Kay Mitusch & Roland Strausz, 2005. "Mediation in Situations of Conflict and Limited Commitment," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 467-500, October.
    8. Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2003. "Long Cheap Talk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1619-1660, November.
      • Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2002. "Long Cheap Talk," Discussion Paper Series dp284, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, revised Nov 2002.
    9. Nahum D. Melumad & Toshiyuki Shibano, 1991. "Communication in Settings with No. Transfers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(2), pages 173-198, Summer.
    10. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    11. Morgan, John & Stocken, Phillip C, 2003. "An Analysis of Stock Recommendations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(1), pages 183-203, Spring.
    12. Wouter Dessein, 2002. "Authority and Communication in Organizations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 811-838.
    13. Gerardi, Dino, 2004. "Unmediated communication in games with complete and incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 104-131, January.
    14. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    15. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2004. "The art of conversation: eliciting information from experts through multi-stage communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 147-179, August.
    16. FORGES, Françoise, 1985. "Correlated equilibria in a class of repeated games with incomplete information," LIDAM Reprints CORE 663, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alonso, Ricardo & Rantakari, Heikki, 2022. "The art of brevity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 257-271.
    2. Ivanov, Maxim, 2010. "Informational control and organizational design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 721-751, March.
    3. Kovác, Eugen & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2009. "Stochastic mechanisms in settings without monetary transfers: The regular case," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1373-1395, July.
    4. Kolotilin, Anton & Li, Hao & Li, Wei, 2013. "Optimal limited authority for principal," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2344-2382.
    5. Lim, Wooyoung, 2012. "Selling authority," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 393-415.
    6. Ambrus, Attila & Egorov, Georgy, 2017. "Delegation and nonmonetary incentives," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 101-135.
    7. Lim, Wooyoung, 2014. "Communication in bargaining over decision rights," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 159-179.
    8. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    9. Koessler, Frédéric & Martimort, David, 2012. "Optimal delegation with multi-dimensional decisions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1850-1881.
    10. Liang, Pinghan, 2013. "Optimal delegation via a strategic intermediary," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 15-30.
    11. Murali Agastya & Parimal Kanti Bag & Indranil Chakraborty, 2014. "Communication and authority with a partially informed expert," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 176-197, March.
    12. Goltsman, Maria & Pavlov, Gregory, 2011. "How to talk to multiple audiences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 100-122, May.
    13. Pinghan Liang, 2010. "Transfer of Authority within Hierarchy," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000000139, David K. Levine.
    14. Tymofiy Mylovanov & Andriy Zapechelnyuk, 2010. "Decision Rules for Experts with Opposing Interests," Working Papers 674, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    15. Chirantan Ganguly & Indrajit Ray, 2023. "Simple Mediation in a Cheap-Talk Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-14, June.
    16. Blume, Andreas & Deimen, Inga & Inoue, Sean, 2022. "Incomplete contracts versus communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    17. Letina, Igor & Liu, Shuo & Netzer, Nick, 2020. "Delegating performance evaluation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(2), May.
    18. Ricardo Alonso & Wouter Dessein & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "When Does Coordination Require Centralization?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 145-179, March.
    19. Ambrus, Attila & Azevedo, Eduardo M. & Kamada, Yuichiro & Takagi, Yuki, 2013. "Legislative committees as information intermediaries: A unified theory of committee selection and amendment rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 103-115.
    20. Blume, Andreas, 2012. "A class of strategy-correlated equilibria in sender–receiver games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 510-517.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:4:p:1397-1420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.