If the institutional environment makes it possible for a potential buyer to make a single “final” offer subject to extreme penalty in the event he should amend the offer—to commit himself—there remains but a single, well-determined decision for the seller: to sell at the price proposed or to forego the sale. The possibility of commitment converts an indeterminate bargaining situation into a two-move game; one player assumes a commitment, and the other makes a final decision. The game has become determinate.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 289