When will states receive concessions in multilateral negotiations? And on which issues are those concessions likely to be received? I highlight two factors that influence the likelihood a state will receive concessions on an issue in multilateral negotiations: (1) the degree to which the issues linked together in the negotiation are “differently valued” by the negotiating states, and (2) the costliness of states’ “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” on each individual issue. The former creates the opportunity for an exchange of concessions; the latter creates the incentive for that exchange to occur. It is the interaction of having more differently valued issues on the table and having a more costly best alternative to a negotiated agreement on an issue that makes a state more likely to receive concessions on that issue. This argument stands in contrast to the standard negotiation literature, which has shown that having a more beneficial best alternative to a negotiated agreement will yield greater concessions. I argue that these contradictory assertions exist because there are two types of best alternatives to a negotiated agreement that must be taken into account – one at the negotiation level and those at the issue-specific level. The current literature has tended to focus on the former while I focus on the latter. I test my argument on an originally constructed dataset of concessions states received in the Uruguay Round trade negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. For each issue in the Round, I coded the costliness of each state's issue-specific best alternative to a negotiated agreement and the level of concessions it received on that issue. The results provide insights into the workings of multilateral negotiations.

中文翻译：

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我能得到什么？国家的谈判替代方案如何影响他们在多边谈判中获得的让步？

国家何时将在多边谈判中获得让步？在哪些问题上可能会收到这些让步？我着重介绍两个因素，这些因素会影响一个国家在多边谈判中对某个问题获得让步的可能性：（1）谈判中的各个州对谈判中的各个问题“不同地重视”的程度，以及（2）成本高昂各州在每个问题上的“最佳替代谈判协议”。前者创造了让步的机会。后者为这种交换创造了动力。相互作用是在桌子上摆放了更多不同价值的问题，并为解决某个问题上的谈判协议提供了成本更高的最佳替代方案，这使得一个州更有可能在该问题上获得让步。该论点与标准的谈判文献相反，后者表明，对谈判后的协议拥有更有利的最佳替代方案将产生更大的让步。我认为存在这些矛盾的主张是因为，必须考虑到谈判协议的两种最佳替代方案：一种是在谈判级别，另一种是在特定于问题的级别。当前的文献倾向于把重点放在前者上，而我把重点放在后者上。我对《关税与贸易总协定》的乌拉圭回合贸易谈判中收到的，原先构建的优惠国家数据集进行了论证。对于本轮中的每个问题，我都将每个州的成本 是针对协商协议的特定问题的最佳替代方案，以及在该问题上获得的优惠程度。结果提供了对多边谈判工作的见识。