In the Absence of Information, the Only Reasonable Negotiation Scheme Is Offering a Certain Percentage of the Original Request: A Proof

Authors

Miroslav Svitek, Czech Technical University in PragueFollow
Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

5-1-2022

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-22-59

Abstract

In the case of complete information, a reasonable solution to a negotiation process is Nash's bargaining solution, in which we maximize the product of all agents' utility gains. This is the only solution that does not depend on the order in which we list the agents, and does not change if we use a different scale for describing each agent's utility. In this paper, we apply similar invariance criteria to a situation when practically all information is absent, and all we know is the smallest and largest possible gains. We show that in this situation, the only invariant negotiation strategy is to offer, to each agent, a certain percentage of the original request -- and to select the percentage for which all such reduced requests can be satisfied.