Title: Decentralized Multilateral Bargaining

Speaker: Ju Yuan, Professor, Department of Economics, University of York, UK.

Abstract: We propose a decentralized multilateral bargaining mechanism that allows each participant to make proposals, accommodate counter-proposals and partial agreements. The role of the planner is minimized, as agreements only require local consensus, and participants are not excluded even if their proposals are rejected—two key features of most real-world negotiations. This gives rise to a new solution theory that integrates the classical alternating-offer bargaining model and general non-transferable utility (NTU) environments involving two or more participants, strategically establishing the Nash bargaining solution for pure bargaining problems, the Shapley value for transferable utility (TU) games, and more generally, the Shapley NTU value for NTU games. We also investigate related variants, flexibility, and robustness of this mechanism.

Date & time: 25 July 2025, 16:00

Venue: B321, Zhixin Building, Central Campus, Shandong University