Incomplete information studies of bargaining impasse have used assumptions from Nash's bargaining problem as experimental treatment variables. Results show that when negotiators are uncertain about the size of the surplus to be divided or the outside options of each other, breakdowns can result. Until now, research has not analyzed the affects of private information in the third determinant of the bargaining problem-bargainerr preferences. This study will develop a methodology for determining bargainer preferences or type and use this information as the treatment variable in another series of economic experiments. One treatment provides bargainers with complete information in all aspects of the bargaining game except for each other's type. The second treatment truly constitutes complete information because in this case bargainers will also know their opponent's type. Based on previous bargaining work done by experimental economists, reciprocal fair behavior and individualistic behavior will be identified and used to construct a taxonomy of subject type. Using the possible combinations of these two types, three bargaining cells will constitute each treatment. A comparison of the impasse rates of the two treatments will test whether impasse vanishes under conditions of complete
