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Public versus Secret Voting in Committees

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  • Andrea Mattozzi
  • M. Nakaguma

Abstract

We study the effect of transparency of individual votes in committees where members are heterogeneous in competence and bias, they are career-concerned, and they can abstain. We show that public voting attenuates the biases of competent members and secret voting attenuates the biases of incompetent members. Public voting leads to better decisions when the magnitude of the bias is large, while secret voting performs better otherwise. We present novel experimental evidence consistent with our theory.
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Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Mattozzi & M. Nakaguma, 2017. "Public versus Secret Voting in Committees," Levine's Bibliography 786969000000001662, UCLA Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levrem:786969000000001662
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    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/general/sociology/mattozzi-papers/committees.pdf
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    18. Helios Herrera & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Joseph C McMurray, 2019. "The Marginal Voter's Curse," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3137-3153.
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    2. Herrera, Helios & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & McMurray, Joseph C., 2019. "Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    3. Bouton, Laurent & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & Malherbe, Frédéric, 2017. "Unanimous rules in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 179-198.
    4. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Moumita Deb & Johannes Lohse & Rebecca McDonald, 2024. "The swing voter's curse revisited: Transparency's impact on committee voting," Discussion Papers 24-01, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    5. Emeric Henry & Charles Louis-Sidois, 2020. "Voting and Contributing When the Group Is Watching," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 246-276, August.
    6. Debrah Meloso & Salvatore Nunnari & Marco Ottaviani, 2023. "Looking into Crystal Balls: A Laboratory Experiment on Reputational Cheap Talk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(9), pages 5112-5127, September.
    7. Cloléry, Héloïse, 2023. "Legislators in the crossfire: Strategic non-voting and the effect of transparency," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha & Deb, Moumita & Lohse, Johannes & McDonald, Rebecca, 2024. "The Swing Voter’s Curse Revisited: Transparency’s Impact on Committee Voting," Working Papers 0744, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    9. Sebastian Fehrler & Moritz Janas, 2021. "Delegation to a Group," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3714-3743, June.
    10. Swank, Otto H. & Visser, Bauke, 2023. "Committees as active audiences: Reputation concerns and information acquisition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    11. Heloise Clolery, 2021. "Legislators in the Crossfire: The Effect of Transparency on Parliamentary Voting," Working Papers 2021-12, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    12. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/4g5hemr5o18g7os4h53mulpcam is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Riboni, Alessandro & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2019. "Mind-changes at the FOMC," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    14. Alessandro RIBONI & Francisco RUGE-MURCIA, 2018. "Deliberation in Committees : Theory and Evidence from the FOMC," Cahiers de recherche 01-2018, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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