Bargaining is one of the most common negotiation situations in
which agents must reach an agreement regarding how to distribute objects
or a monetary amount. On the one side, each agent prefers to reach an
agreement, rather than abstaining from doing so. On the other side, each
agent prefers that agreement which most favors her interests. This problem
has been widely studied in the game theory literature, under the assumption
that agents are intelligent (i.e., able to collect all the information over the
opponents) and rational (i.e., able to maximize their gain). The most
satisfactory models represent a bargaining situation as a non–cooperative
(strategic) game, where a solution is a strategy profile, specifying a strategy
per agent, that is somehow in equilibrium. This chapter surveys the game
theoretic strategic models for bargaining and the corresponding solving
algorithms. Although the bargaining problem has been studied in the
literature for almost 30 years, no algorithm able to solve a general bargaining
problem with uncertainty is known. The critical issues behind the game
theoretic approaches and some possible new research directions are also
discussed.
Keywords: Game theory, Bilateral bargaining, Nash equilibrium, Rational
agents, Non–cooperative negotiation, Uncertainty, Bayesian models,
Alternating–offers protocol, Bargaining in markets, Self–confirming
equilibrium.
