Strategic communication in committees with expressive payoffs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Breitmoser, Yves; Valasek, Justin
• 署名单位: University of Bielefeld; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12457
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 33-54
• 关键词: unanimous jury verdicts; TRANSPARENCY

摘要

This article explores information aggregation and strategic communication in settings where committee members are held accountable, formally or informally, for their individual voting decisions. We show that if decisions are made via majority voting, expressive payoffs introduce a free-rider problem that prevents the committee from communicating truthfully and taking optimal decisions. In contrast, if decisions are made by unanimity, free-riding is mitigated because all agents are responsible for the committee's decision. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we find that under unanimity subjects are more truthful and are ultimately more likely to take the optimal decision.