Bargaining Theory and Experiments

Bargaining is one of the few economic problems where the standard "let the market clear" answer breaks down, so this course attacks it from three angles at once: the axiomatic tradition (Nash and friends), the strategic/noncooperative side (Rubinstein-style alternating offers, mostly from Osborne-Rubinstein), and what actually happens when real people play these games in the lab. You'll work through seven problem sets, sit through occasional in-class experiments where you're the subject, and write a final essay rather than take a timed exam. It's an elective that assumes you're comfortable with game theory, and it's where you start seeing why behavioral and experimental economics exist as fields, the theory's clean predictions keep missing, and figuring out why is the whole point.