期刊名称：Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics / Dresden University of Technology, Faculty of Business Management and Economics
印刷版ISSN：0945-4829
出版年度：2003
卷号：1
出版社：Dresden
摘要：In the present study we analyse the topic of coalition formation in multi-issue multilateral negotiations under different
voting rules when there is the opportunity of logrolling. We have carried out 3 experiments and compare our findings
with the standard public choice theory predictions. In the first experiment we have shown that in a situation of 3-issues
and 3-parties negotiations with majority rule, most of the subjects behave in a satisficing, not in a optimizing, way.
They are found to be subject to a “Zone of Agreement Bias” (ZAB) which induces them to form suboptimal coalitions
and to choose Pareto-dominated agreements. Moreover, we find that the cycling problem predicted by public choice
theory in most cases does not arise. In experiment 2 we have shown that the adoption of the unanimity, instead of the
majority, rule reduced the suboptimizing effect of the ZAB, and produced a much higher rate of optimal agreements.
Experiment 3 shows that the results obtained in experiments 1 and 2 hold even when the level of complexity of the
negotiation problem increases. To this aim we considered a situation of four-issues and four-parties negotiations under
both the majority and the unanimity rule.
