2026 General Seminar no. 25 - Manshu Khanna (Peking)

Title: Timely Negotiations

by Olivier Bochet, Manshu Khanna and Simon Siegenthaler

Abstract: 

Deadlines in negotiations pose a paradox: they help coordinate bargaining but also fuel brinkmanship, leading to impasses despite mutual gains. We study how redesigning negotiation protocols can resolve this tension. Using a laboratory experiment, we show that structural design choices shape bargaining dynamics. While theory predicts that uncertain deadlines—i.e., probabilistic deadline timing—reduce strategic posturing and improve outcomes, we find a non-monotonic relationship: both fixed and highly uncertain deadlines outperform those with moderate uncertainty. Next, range offers—proposals stated as acceptable price intervals—reduce breakdowns by replacing aggressive single-price anchors with flexible signals, improving agreement rates. These effects hold under complete and private information. By contrast, informa- tional nudges—prompts about fairness or risky delays—fail to reduce breakdowns, highlighting that structural interventions, not belief alignment, mitigate brinkmanship. Our results position deadlines and offer structures as design tools with direct implications for labor, corporate, and policy negotiations.