Noncooperative Bargaining in Apex Games and the Kernel

This paper studies non-cooperative bargaining with random proposers in apex games. Two di¤erent protocols are considered: the egalitarian propocol, which selects each player to be the proposer with the same probability, and the proportional protocol, which selects each player with a probability proportional to his number of votes. Expected equilibrium payo¤s coincide with the kernel for the grand coalition regardless of the protocol. Expected payo¤s conditional on a coalition may depend on the protocol: given a coalition of the apex player with a minor player, an egalitarian protocol yields a nearly equal split whereas a proportional protocol leads to a proportional split.