First things first? The agenda formation problem for multi-issue committees

The paper focuses on sequential bargaining procedures in which parties are allowed to differ in several respects. We first highlight the strategic effects in the bargaining game and the (often conflicting) incentives that players need to take into account in forming their preferences over agendas. We then show that there is a Pareto superior agenda among the issue-by-issue procedures: this consists in setting the most important issue first, unless this is difficult/urgent (in the sense that there is probability of game breakdown after a rejection in the negotiations over this issue). In this case parties prefer to negotiate over the easy issue first.