Antoni Cunyat

Commitment and Choice of Partner in a Negotiation with a Deadline

This paper analyses the effects of partially revocable endogenous commitments of a seller in a negotiation with a deadline. In particular, we examine when commitment is a source of strength, a source of inefficiency and when it does not affect the bargaining outcome at all. We show that when commitment possesses a minimum amount of irrevocability this crucially determines the bargaining outcome. In the bilateral bargaining case, commitment becomes a source of inefficiency since it causes a deadline effect. In the choice of partner framework, however, the deadline effect disappears and there is an immediate agreement and, moreover, commitment becomes a source of strength since it increases the sellers equilibrium payoff by triggering off competition between the buyers.

Effective leadership in teams: a simple model

This article explores the determinants of effective leadership in a team of production. We obtain that for leadership to be effective, the leader must be at least as productive as the follower. In the case of a charismatic leader, we obtain that efficiency can be restored with a homogeneous team.

Temporary Contracts, Employment Protection and Skill: An Application to Spain

In this paper we explain the different conversion patterns of temporary contracts by the impact of employment protection in combination with differences in productivity between workers. We use longitudinal survey data from individuals to estimate a competing risks model with multi‐spells for Spain. The model includes correlated unobserved determinants in the transition rates to deal with selectivity. We find that workers with higher levels of education have a stronger probability of finding a permanent job. In contrast, low‐educated workers have a stronger probability of ending in unemployment or another temporary contract. Furthermore, we show the importance of employment protection in affecting the threshold level above which workers gain access to a permanent contract.

Crowding out effect and sorting in competitive labor markets with motivated workers

ABSTRACT This article makes a contribution to the economics literature by inducing proper self-selection into contracts based on workers’ motivation. The novelty of our results is that it points out the alternative potential role of the crowding-out effect to separate workers based on their motivation.

BARGAINING WITH COMMITMENT UNDER AN UNCERTAIN DEADLINE

We consider an infinite horizon bargaining game in which a deadline can arise with positive probability and where players possess an endogenous commitment device. We show that for any truncation of the game, the equilibrium agreement can only take place if the deadline arises within this finite horizon. Since the deadline is an uncertain event, the equilibrium exhibits agreements which are delayed with positive probability.

Optimal Imperfect Commitments in a Negotiation with a Deadline

One major finding of the bargaining literature is that the more irrevocable a commitment is, the better for the committed player. One notable exception is Fershtman and Seidmann (1993) bilateral negotiation where the commitment not only does not improve the committed players payoff but also it results in inefficient delays. In this paper we relax two assumptions of the bargaining literature related to the uncertainty and irrevocability of commitments. We allow players not only to possess imperfect commitments but also to choose the degree of imperfection of their commitment. When these assumptions are incorporated in Fershtman and Seidmann (1993)s model, we obtain that, on the one hand, the delays disappear and an immediate agreement is reached. On the other hand, the commitment becomes effective, that is, it improves the payoff of the committed player.