Prospect Theory, Fairness, and the Escalation of Conflict at a Negotiation Impasse*
研究双边谈判陷入僵局时，弱势方是否选择升级冲突。通过社会效用函数连接不公平厌恶与前景理论，实验证据支持模型预测：升级风险越高，升级率越高；升级成本越高，分歧率越低。
Abstract We study a bilateral negotiation set‐up where, at a bargaining impasse, the disadvantaged party chooses whether to escalate the conflict or not. Escalation is costly for both parties, and it results in a random draw of the winner of the escalated conflict. We derive the behavioral predictions of a simple social utility function, which is convex in disadvantageous inequality, thus connecting the inequity aversion and the prospect theory models. Our causal laboratory evidence is, to a large extent, consistent with the predicted effects. Among other things, the model predicts that the escalation rate is higher when escalation outcomes are riskier, and that the disagreement rate is lower when the cost of escalating the conflict is higher.