Concord and contention in a dynamic unstructured bargaining experiment with costly conflict

We report experimental results from a dynamic real-time bargaining experiment. Players earn flows of income from the assets they possess at any point in the bargaining process, while they incur costs which are proportional to the size of the conflict between players’ current claims. We find that most bargaining interactions are characterised by small but non-zero amounts of contention, which arises from the process of tacitly coordinating claims, including from negotiating turn-taking approaches. Interactions with large losses from contention occur in a sizeable minority of interactions. There are significant individual differences in outcomes across participants. We do not find systematic gender effects, but do find that the locus of control of participants predicts bargaining outcomes.