IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/543.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decision making in committees: transparency, reputation and voting rules

Author

Listed:
  • Levy, Gilat

Abstract

In this paper I analyze the effect of the transparency of the decision making process in committees on the decisions that are eventually taken. I focus on committees whose members are motivated by career concerns, so that each member tries to enhance his own reputation. When the decision making process is secretive, the individual votes of the committee members are not exposed to the public but only the final decision. Thus, individuals are evaluated according to the group's decision. I find that in such a case, group members are induced to comply with preexisting biases. For example, if the voting rule demands a supermajority to accept a reform, individuals vote more often against reforms and exacerbate the conservatism of the voting rule. When the decision making process becomes transparent and individual votes are observed, this effect disappears and such committees are then more likely to accept reforms. I also find that coupled with the right voting rule, a secretive procedure may induce better decisions than a transparent one.

Suggested Citation

  • Levy, Gilat, 2005. "Decision making in committees: transparency, reputation and voting rules," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 543, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:543
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/543/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne Sibert, 2003. "Monetary Policy Committees: Individual and Collective Reputations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 649-665.
    2. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    3. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    4. Trueman, Brett, 1994. "Analyst Forecasts and Herding Behavior," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 97-124.
    5. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2001. "Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 393-421, September.
    6. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    7. John Fingleton, 2005. "Career Concerns of Bargainers," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 179-204, April.
    8. Daniel J. Seidmann, 2008. "Optimal Quotas in Private Committees," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 16-36, January.
    9. Bengt Holmström, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 169-182.
    10. Levy, Gilat, 2004. "Anti-herding and strategic consultation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 503-525, June.
    11. David Austen-Smith & Tim Feddersen, 2002. "Deliberation and Voting Rules," Discussion Papers 1359, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    12. Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1996. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts," Discussion Papers 1170, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    13. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2012. "Information acquisition and transparency in committees," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(2), pages 427-453, May.
    2. Stephen Hansen & Michael McMahon, 2016. "First Impressions Matter: Signalling as a Source of Policy Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1645-1672.
    3. Elisabeth Schulte, 2010. "Information aggregation and preference heterogeneity in committees," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(1), pages 97-118, July.
    4. Dino Gerardi & Leeat Yariv, 2003. "Committee Design in the Presence of Communication," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1411, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    5. Otto H. Swank & Bauke Visser, 2007. "Is Transparency to no avail? Committee Decision-making, Pre-meetings, and Credible Deals," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-055/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Keiichi Morimoto, 2021. "Information Use and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, May.
    7. Jerome Mathis, 2006. "Deliberation with Partially Verifiable Information," THEMA Working Papers 2006-03, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    8. Liu, Yaozhou Franklin & Sanyal, Amal, 2012. "When second opinions hurt: A model of expert advice under career concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-16.
    9. Breitmoser, Yves & Valasek, Justin, 2017. "A rationale for unanimity in committees," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2017-308, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Hahn, Volker, 2017. "Committee design with endogenous participation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 388-408.
    11. Volker Hahn, 2012. "On the Optimal Size of Committees of Experts," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2012-24, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    12. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    13. Ghosh, Saptarshi P. & Roy, Jaideep, 2015. "Committees with leaks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 207-214.
    14. Gerardi, Dino & Yariv, Leeat, 2007. "Deliberative voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 317-338, May.
    15. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    16. Sourav Bhattacharya, 2006. "Preference Monotonicity and Information Aggregation in Elections," Working Paper 325, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Dec 2008.
    17. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2010. "What Do Outside Experts Bring To A Committee? Evidence From The Bank of England," Economic Research Papers 270783, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    18. Murali Agastya & Jorge Rojas-Vallejos, 2023. "The “desire to conform” and dynamic search by a committee," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(3), pages 737-756, September.
    19. Nica, Melania, 2023. "Reputation formation and reinforcement of biases in a post-truth world," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 455-478.
    20. Job Swank & Otto Swank & Bauke Visser, 2006. "Transparency and Pre-meetings," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-051/1, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:543. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.