Centre de Referència en Economia Analítica Barcelona Economics Working Paper Series

We present a novel approach to N-person bargaining, based on the idea that the agreement reached in a negotiation is determined by how the direct conflict resulting from disagreement would be resolved. Our basic building block is the disagreement function, which maps each set of feasible outcomes into a disagreement point. Using this function and a weak axiom based on individual rationality we reach a unique solution: the agreement in the shadow of conflict, ASC. This agreement may be construed as the limit of a sequence of partial agreements, each of which is reached as a function of the parties’ relative power in the non-cooperative scenario