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A rationale for unanimity in committees
[Arbeitspapier]
Körperschaftlicher Herausgeber
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH
Abstract Existing theoretical and experimental studies have established that unanimity is a poor decision rule for promoting information aggregation. Despite this, unanimity is frequently used in committees making decisions on behalf of society. This paper shows that when committee members are exposed to "id... mehr
Existing theoretical and experimental studies have established that unanimity is a poor decision rule for promoting information aggregation. Despite this, unanimity is frequently used in committees making decisions on behalf of society. This paper shows that when committee members are exposed to "idiosyncratic" payoffs that condition on their individual vote, unanimity can facilitate truthful communication and optimal information aggregation. Theoretically, we show that since agents" votes are not always pivotal, majority rule suffers from a free-rider problem. Unanimity mitigates free-riding since responsibility for the committee's decision is equally distributed across all agents. We test our predictions in a controlled laboratory experiment. As predicted, if unanimity is required, subjects are more truthful, respond more to others' messages, and are ultimately more likely to make the optimal decision. Idiosyncratic payoffs such as a moral bias thus present a rationale for the widespread use of unanimous voting.... weniger
Thesaurusschlagwörter
Regelung; Entscheidung; Kommunikation; Aggregation; Information; Laborexperiment; Gespräch
Klassifikation
Erhebungstechniken und Analysetechniken der Sozialwissenschaften
Kommunikationssoziologie, Sprachsoziologie, Soziolinguistik
Freie Schlagwörter
C90; D71; D72; committees; decision rules; incomplete information
Sprache Dokument
Englisch
Publikationsjahr
2017
Erscheinungsort
Berlin
Seitenangabe
41 S.
Schriftenreihe
Discussion Papers / Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Markt und Entscheidung, Abteilung Ökonomik des Wandels, SP II 2017-308
Handle
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/167587
Status
Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet
Lizenz
Deposit Licence - Keine Weiterverbreitung, keine Bearbeitung