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Axiomatic bargaining is presented in MWG in the context of welfare economics (Ch. 22), the aim being the formulation of reasonable criteria for dividing gains resulting from cooperative endeavors (the “joint surplus”). It is further presented as an application of cooperative game theory, in which an arbitrator distributes the joint surplus in a manner that reflects “fairly” the bargaining strength of the different agents (although we could conceive of a situation where the parties are bargaining without an external party). If bargaining fails, the outcome is the parties’ own fallback positions (the threat point, or status quo).

The rise of the economist as engineer is, economists and historians say, an essential characteristic of the development of economics in the postwar period.

The recent debate about the reproducibility of the results published by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff offers a showcase for the importance of replication in empirical economics.