Reputational Bargaining and Inefficient Technology Adoption

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Pei, Harry, Vairo, Maren
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2022
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author Pei, Harry
Vairo, Maren
author_facet Pei, Harry
Vairo, Maren
contents A buyer and a seller bargain over the price of an object. Both players can build reputations for being obstinate by offering the same price over time. Before players bargain, the seller decides whether to adopt a new technology that can lower his cost of production. We show that even when the buyer cannot observe the seller's adoption decision, players' reputational incentives can lead to inefficient under-adoption and significant delays in reaching agreement, and that these inefficiencies arise in equilibrium if and only if the social benefit from adoption is large enough. Our result implies that an increase in the benefit from adoption may lower the probability of adoption and that the seller's opportunity to adopt a cost-saving technology may lower social welfare.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2201_01827
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reputational Bargaining and Inefficient Technology Adoption
Pei, Harry
Vairo, Maren
Theoretical Economics
A buyer and a seller bargain over the price of an object. Both players can build reputations for being obstinate by offering the same price over time. Before players bargain, the seller decides whether to adopt a new technology that can lower his cost of production. We show that even when the buyer cannot observe the seller's adoption decision, players' reputational incentives can lead to inefficient under-adoption and significant delays in reaching agreement, and that these inefficiencies arise in equilibrium if and only if the social benefit from adoption is large enough. Our result implies that an increase in the benefit from adoption may lower the probability of adoption and that the seller's opportunity to adopt a cost-saving technology may lower social welfare.
title Reputational Bargaining and Inefficient Technology Adoption
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.01827