TIME INCONSISTENCY AND LEARNING IN BARGAINING GAMES

Abstract

The literature on time-inconsistent preferences introduced naive, partially naive and sophisticated as types of agents that represent different levels of unawareness of agents' self-control problems. This paper incorporates time-inconsistent players in a sequential bargaining model. We first consider 'naive' agents who never learn about their types and show that bargaining between such a player and a standard exponential agent ends in immediate agreement. The more naive a player, the higher his share. If naive agents can learn their type over time, we show that there is a critical date such that there is no agreement before that date. Hence, existence of time-inconsistent players who can learn as they play the game can be another explanation for delays in bargaining.Hyperbolic discounting, learning, bargaining, delay