On Optimal Agendas for Multi-Issue Negotiation

This paper analyzes bilateral multi-issue negotiation where the issues are divisible, there are time constraints in the form of deadlines and discount factors, and the agents have different preferences over the issues. The issues are negotiated using the package deal procedure. The set of issues to be negotiated is a choice variable in that the agents can decide what issues to negotiate. This set is called the negotiation agenda. Since the outcome of negotiation depends on the agenda, it is important to determine what agenda maximizes an agent’s utility and is therefore its optimal agenda. To this end, this paper presents polynomial time methods for finding an agent’s optimal agenda