Conflicts and Common Interests in Committees

Hao Li, Sherwin Rosen and Wing Suen

American Economic Review, 2001, vol. 91, issue 5, 1478-1497

Abstract: Committees improve decisions by pooling members' independent information, but promote manipulation, obfuscation, and exaggeration of private information when members have conflicting preferences. Committee decision procedures transform continuous data into ordered ranks through voting. This coarsens the transmission of information, but controls strategic manipulations and allows some degree of information sharing. Each member becomes more cautious in casting the crucial vote than when he alone makes the decision based on own information. Increased quality of one member's information results in his casting the crucial vote more often. Committees make better decisions for members than does delegation.

JEL-codes: D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.5.1478
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

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Working Paper: Conflicts and Common Interests in Committees (2000)
Working Paper: Conflicts and Common Interests in Committees (1999)
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