Intra-firm Bargaining Under Nonbinding Contracts

We present a new methodology for studying the problem of intra-firm bargaining, based on the notion that contracts cannot commit the firm and its agents to wages and employment. We develop and analyze a general non-cooperative multilateral bargaining framework between the firm and its employees and consider outcomes which are immune to renegotiations by any party. Equilibrium firm profits are characterizable as both a weighted average of a neoclassical (non-bargaining) firm’s profits and a generalization of Shapley value for a corresponding cooperative game. Furthermore, the resulting payoffs induce economically significant distortions in the firm’s input and organizational-design decisions.