Extreme Agenda Setting Power in Dynamic Bargaining Games

In a general bargaining model with a fixed proposer, we show that the agenda setter’s equilibrium payoff is never lower than her payoff in the static model. There is a cutoff level of voter patience such that below the cutoff, the static equilibrium (possibly along with others) obtains; and above the cutoff, all equilibria are in mixed proposal strategies, and the agenda setter does strictly better than the static payoff. When the dimensionality of the set of alternatives is high, the power of the agenda setter typically becomes extreme as voters become patient: equilibrium outcomes converge to the ideal point of the agenda setter. Voters accept outcomes worse than the status quo because they anticipate the possibility of even worse outcomes in the future; and as voters become patient, this threat looms large, conferring increasing leverage to the agenda setter. In the majority rule case, for example, if the set of alternatives has dimension three or more, then for generic profiles of utilities, agenda setting power becomes extreme as voters become patient.