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Are Two Heads Better Than One?: An Experimental Analysis of Group vs. Individual Decisionmaking

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Author Info
Alan S. Blinder
John Morgan

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Abstract

Two laboratory experiments - one a statistical urn problem, the other a monetary policy experiment - were run to test the commonly-believed hypothesis that groups make decisions more slowly than individuals do. Surprisingly, this turns out not to be true there is no significant difference in average decision lags. Furthermore, and also surprisingly, there is no significant difference in the decision lag when groups decisions are made by majority rule versus when they are made under a unanimity requirement. In addition, group decisions are on average superior to individual decisions. The results are strikingly similar across the two experiments.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7909.

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Date of creation: Sep 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7909

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E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

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  1. Laurence Ball, 1997. "Efficient rules for monetary policy," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G97/3, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-21.

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