Leadership in Groups: A Monetary Policy Experiment

Alan S. Blinder and John Morgan

No 13391, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In an earlier paper (Blinder and Morgan, 2005), we created an experimental apparatus in which Princeton University students acted as ersatz central bankers, making monetary policy decisions both as individuals and in groups. In this study, we manipulate the size and leadership structure of monetary policy decisionmaking. We find no evidence of superior performance by groups that have designated leaders. Groups without such leaders do as well as or better than groups with well-defined leaders. Furthermore, we find rather little difference between the performance of four-person and eight-person groups; the larger groups outperform the smaller groups by a very small margin. Finally, we successfully replicate our Princeton results, at least qualitatively: Groups perform better than individuals, and they do not require more "time" to do so.

JEL-codes: E52 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-exp, nep-mac and nep-mon
Date: Written
Note: EFG ME
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