IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yon/wpaper/2024rwp-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Biased Mediation: Selection and Effectiveness

Author

Listed:
  • Jin Yeub Kim

    (Yonsei University)

  • Jong Jae Lee

    (The Catholic University of Korea)

Abstract

This paper presents a theory of mediator selection in conflicts that compares biased mediation and unbiased mediation. We determine when and how parties in dispute accept a biased mediator, and characterize optimal mechanisms used by biased mediators when they are selected into mediation in equilibrium. When asymmetric information is significant, parties accept biased mediation as long as the degree of mediator bias is not too high. Biased mediators care more about the payoffs of their favored party. Nevertheless, we find that biased mediators can be equally effective in promoting peace as the unbiased mediator. This implies that, once selected into mediation, the mediator’s effectiveness is independent of the degree of mediator bias. The key force of our results is that a biased mediator’s optimal recommendation strategies allocate more shares of resource to the favored party while providing a higher chance of a peaceful settlement to the disfavored party.

Suggested Citation

  • Jin Yeub Kim & Jong Jae Lee, 2024. "Biased Mediation: Selection and Effectiveness," Working papers 2024rwp-230, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:yon:wpaper:2024rwp-230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://121.254.254.220/repec/yon/wpaper/2024rwp-230.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Biased Mediation; Conflict; Mechanism Design; Mediator Selection.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:yon:wpaper:2024rwp-230. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: YERI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eryonkr.html .

    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.