Variable Competence and Collective Performance: Unanimity vs. Simple Majority Rule

Eyal Baharad, Ruth Ben-Yashar and Shmuel Nitzan

No HIAS-E-80, Discussion paper series from Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Under the unanimity rule, a single voter may alter a decision that is unanimously accepted by all other voters. Under the simple majority rule, the impact of such a voter diminishes. This paper examines the marginal effect of competence on the collective performance – the likelihood of reaching a correct decision. It is shown that under the unanimity rule (simple majority rule), adding an incompetent voter to the group is inferior (superior) to giving up an existing competent voter. The negative impact of an incompetent voter cannot (can) always be balanced by adding a competent one when the decision mechanism is the unanimity (simple majority) rule. Moreover, improving a single voter's competence may have a greater effect on the collective performance under the simple majority rule relative to the unanimity rule.

Keywords: Unanimity rule; simple majority rule; voters' competence; collective performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2018-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
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https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/29715/070_hiasDP-E-80.pdf

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-80

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