Collective Experimentation: A Laboratory Study

Mikhail Freer (), Cesar Martinelli and Siyu Wang ()
Additional contact information
Siyu Wang: For Motor Company

No 1066, Working Papers from George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

Abstract: We develop a simple model of collective experimentation and take it to the lab. In equilibrium, as in the recent work of Strulovici (2010), majority rule has a bias toward under experimentation, as good news for a minority of voters may lead a majority of voters to abandon a policy when each of them thinks it is likely that the policy will be passed by a future majority excluding them. We compare the behavior in the lab of groups under majority rule and under the optimal voting rule, which precludes voting in intermediate stages of the policy experiment. Surprisingly, performs better than the (theoretically) optimal voting rule. Majority rule seems to be more robust than other forms of voting when players make mistakes.

Pages: 29
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.gmu.edu/schools/chss/economics/icesworkingpapers.gmu.edu/pdf/1066.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Collective experimentation: A laboratory study (2020)
Working Paper: Collective experimentation: a laboratory study (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gms:wpaper:1066

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shams Bahabib ().