Delay in multilateral bargaining under complete information

This paper analyzes a complete-information, infinite-horizon, multilateral bargaining model in which one player bargains with each of the other player s one at a time and binding cash-offer contracts are used to govern transac tions. Under a weak stationarity condition on equilibrium strategies, we ch aracterize the set of equilibria for the game. We show that when players ar e sufficiently patient, significant delay in reaching agreements may emerge and this delay can become longer quickly as the number of involved parties rises. Indeed, when the number of bargainers is large, perpetual disagreem ent can occur in equilibrium. (C) 2000 Academic Press.