IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v51y2007i2p227-250.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prospect Theory and Coercive Bargaining

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher K. Butler

    (Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque)

Abstract

Despite many applications of prospect theory's concepts to explain political and strategic phenomena, formal analyses of strategic problems using prospect theory are rare. Using Fearon's model of bargaining, Tversky and Kahneman's value function, and an existing probability weighting function, I construct a model that demonstrates the differences between expected value and prospect theory when applied to strategic interaction. Critically important to this demonstration is an examination of different types of reference points that make sense for bargaining problems. Four types of reference points are discussed and analyzed: power-based, equity, variants of the status quo, and extreme ``I-want-it-all'' reference points. Each of these types of reference points produce different bargaining behavior at the individual level and in combination with the type of reference point of the other actor. Additionally, I demonstrate that bargaining failure is possible for this model under complete and perfect information using prospect-theoretic logic.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher K. Butler, 2007. "Prospect Theory and Coercive Bargaining," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(2), pages 227-250, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:2:p:227-250
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002706297703
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002706297703
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002706297703?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Slantchev, Branislav L., 2003. "The Power to Hurt: Costly Conflict with Completely Informed States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 123-133, February.
    2. Jonathan Shalev, 2000. "Loss aversion equilibrium," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 29(2), pages 269-287.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    5. Carlson Lisa J. & Dacey Raymond, 2004. "Sequential Decision Analysis of the Traditional Deterrence Game," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Powell, Robert, 2004. "The Inefficient Use of Power: Costly Conflict with Complete Information," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(2), pages 231-241, May.
    7. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bram Driesen & Andrés Perea & Hans Peters, 2010. "On Loss Aversion in Bimatrix Games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 367-391, April.
    2. Carlson Lisa J & Dacey Raymond, 2008. "The Sensitivity of Critical Risk Values to Small Changes in the Value of the Status Quo," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 89-110, January.
    3. Peter J. Phillips & Gabriela Pohl, 2017. "Terrorist choice: a stochastic dominance and prospect theory analysis," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 150-164, March.
    4. Christopher K. Butler & Scott Gates, 2010. "The Technology of Terror: Accounting for the Strategic Use of Terrorism," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 30, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Hota, Ashish R. & Garg, Siddharth & Sundaram, Shreyas, 2016. "Fragility of the commons under prospect-theoretic risk attitudes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 135-164.

    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. John Tyson Chatagnier, 2015. "Conflict bargaining as a signal to third parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(2), pages 237-268, April.
    2. Konrad, Kai A. & Kovenock, Dan, 2009. "Multi-battle contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 256-274, May.
    3. Christopher R. Dittmeier, 2013. "Proliferation, preemption, and intervention in the nuclearization of second-tier states," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(4), pages 492-525, October.
    4. Audrey Hu & Liang Zou, 2008. "Auctions under Payoff Uncertainty: The Case with Heterogeneous Bidder-Aversion to Downside Risk," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-044/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 22 Apr 2008.
    5. Jose-Luis Pinto-Prades & Jose-Maria Abellan-Perpiñan, 2012. "When normative and descriptive diverge: how to bridge the difference," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(4), pages 569-584, April.
    6. Carla Martinez Machain, 2015. "Air Campaign Duration and the Interaction of Air and Ground Forces," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 539-564, May.
    7. Katarzyna M. Werner & Horst Zank, 2019. "A revealed reference point for prospect theory," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 731-773, June.
    8. Theo Offerman & Asa B. Palley, 2016. "Lossed in translation: an off-the-shelf method to recover probabilistic beliefs from loss-averse agents," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-30, March.
    9. Ashwin K. Seshadri, 2015. "Nonconvex Equilibrium Prices in Prediction Markets," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, March.
    10. Catherine C. Langlois & Jean-Pierre P. Langlois, 2006. "Bargaining and the Failure of Asymmetric Deterrence: Trading off the Risk of War for the Promise of a Better Deal," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 23(2), pages 159-180, April.
    11. Meirowitz, Adam & Sartori, Anne, 2006. "Secrecy and War: The Origins of Private Information," Papers 03-31-2006, Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy.
    12. Robert Shum, 2014. "China, the United States, bargaining, and climate change," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 83-100, March.
    13. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    14. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier L’Haridon & Horst Zank, 2010. "Separating curvature and elevation: A parametric probability weighting function," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 39-65, August.
    15. Che-Yuan Liang, 2017. "Optimal inequality behind the veil of ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 431-455, October.
    16. Xue Dong He & Sang Hu & Jan Obłój & Xun Yu Zhou, 2017. "Technical Note—Path-Dependent and Randomized Strategies in Barberis’ Casino Gambling Model," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 97-103, February.
    17. Karagözoğlu, Emin & Keskin, Kerim, 2024. "Consideration sets and reference points in a dynamic bargaining game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 381-403.
    18. Ariane Charpin, 2018. "Tests des modèles de décision en situation de risque. Le cas des parieurs hippiques en France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 69(5), pages 779-803.
    19. Bocqueho, Geraldine & Jacquet, Florence & Reynaud, Arnaud, 2011. "Expected Utility or Prospect Theory Maximizers? Results from a Structural Model based on Field-experiment Data," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114257, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Freudenreich, Hanna & Musshoff, Oliver & Wiercinski, Ben, 2017. "The Relationship between Farmers' Shock Experiences and their Uncertainty Preferences - Experimental Evidence from Mexico," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 256212, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.

    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:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:2:p:227-250. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    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.