Who joins the committee? An experiment on shared governance, corruption, and public scrutiny

Committees for the management and redistribution of public resources are common in a variety of settings, ranging from homeowners’ associations (HOAs), to parent–teacher organizations to government councils. Why do some individuals join these committees, and what predicts their behaviors once they become committee members? Joining is costly but necessary for the provision of public goods. Prosocial, intrinsically motivated individuals may therefore be more likely to self-select into committees. However, because there is little oversight and transparency over committee expenditures, making it relatively easy to embezzle funds, committees could also attract the most dishonest individuals. We employ a laboratory experiment to test whether and to what extent individuals’ decision to join a committee in charge of public funds depends on their type (honest versus dishonest, and prosocial versus self-interested) and their subjective beliefs of how (dis)honest the existing committee members are. We also test whether mechanisms that resemble town hall meetings and require committee members to communicate their decisions to the public affect both the decision to engage in corruption and the decision to join committees.