Games Bargaining: A Proposed Application of the Theory of Games to Collective Bargaining

Abstract

COLLECTIVE bargaining may perhaps be called an art; it has not yet become a science. But the approach of the sciences has brought to other fields dispassion; their methods have brought accuracy; their insights, illumination. And some of these benefits may be promised for collective bargaining by a new star in the firmament of the social sciences, the Theory of Games. A remarkable tool for the analysis of social behavior, the Theory of Games was conceived by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern ; and it has been adapted by John Nash to bargaining situations. Upon the foundation that Nash has provided, it may be that a new framework for collective bargaining can be erected. This comment is intended to suggest one such possible framework, a system that will be designated "Games Bargaining."