Advice from Multiple Experts: A Comparison of Simultaneous, Sequential, and Hierarchical Communication

Ming Li

The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, 2010, vol. 10, issue 1, 24

Abstract: In this paper, I analyze an example in which two perfectly informed experts advise a decision maker. Each expert has private information about her own bias. I show that consulting two experts is better than consulting just one. I compare the efficiency of information transmission between simultaneous, sequential, and hierarchical forms of communication. I show that simultaneous communication achieves the highest efficiency, followed by sequential and hierarchical communication. However, hierarchical communication, in which a second expert chooses whether to block the first expert's message, achieves a moderate level of efficiency, even though the decision maker receives only one message. Finally, there are preference settings in which both sequential and hierarchical communication are superior to simultaneous communication.

Keywords: expert opinions; strategic information transmission; multiple experts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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DOI: 10.2202/1935-1704.1490

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