IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/econom/2000-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Alan S. Blinder

    (Princeton University)

  • John Morgan

    (Princeton University)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan S. Blinder & John Morgan, 2000. "Are Two Heads Better than One?: An Experimental Analysis of Group vs. Individual Decisionmaking," Working Papers 2000-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2000-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~blinder/papers/00NBER7909.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glenn Rudebusch & Lars E.O. Svensson, 1999. "Policy Rules for Inflation Targeting," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 203-262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Laurence Ball, 1999. "Efficient Rules for Monetary Policy," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 63-83, April.
    3. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1, March.
    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. Lars E. O. Svensson, 1999. "Monetary policy issues for the Eurosystem," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    3. Nejla Adanur Aklan & Mehmet Nargelecekenler, 2008. "Taylor Rule in Practice: Evidence from Turkey," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 14(2), pages 156-166, May.
    4. Alexandre, Fernando & Driffill, John & Spagnolo, Fabio, 2002. "Inflation Targeting, Exchange Rate Volatility and International Policy Coordination," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 70(4), pages 546-569, Special I.
    5. Smets, Frank, 2003. "Maintaining price stability: how long is the medium term?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1293-1309, September.
    6. Teruyoshi Kobayashi, 2004. "On the Relationship Between Short‐ and Long‐term Interest Rates," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 261-286, July.
    7. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Svensson, Lars E. O., 2002. "Eurosystem monetary targeting: Lessons from U.S. data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 417-442, March.
    8. Caglayan, Mustafa & Jehan, Zainab & Mouratidis, Kostas, 2012. "Asymmetric monetary policy rules for open economies: Evidence from four countries," MPRA Paper 37401, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Wasim Shahid Malik & Ather Maqsood Ahmed, 2010. "Taylor Rule and the Macroeconomic Performance in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 49(1), pages 37-56.
    10. Ulf Söderström, 2002. "Monetary Policy with Uncertain Parameters," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(1), pages 125-145, March.
    11. Castelnuovo, Efrem, 2008. "Regime shifts and the stability of backward-looking Phillips curves in open economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 40-53, February.
    12. repec:pri:cepsud:70blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Driffill, John & Rotondi, Zeno, 2007. "Inertia in Taylor Rules," CEPR Discussion Papers 6570, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Mustafa Caglayan & Zainab Jehan & Kostas Mouratidis, 2016. "Asymmetric Monetary Policy Rules for an Open Economy: Evidence from Canada and the Uk," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 279-293, July.
    15. Disyatat, Piti, 2010. "Inflation targeting, asset prices, and financial imbalances: Contextualizing the debate," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 145-155, September.
    16. Lansing, Kevin J. & Trehan, Bharat, 2003. "Forward-looking behavior and optimal discretionary monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 249-256, November.
    17. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "The quest for prosperity without inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 633-663, April.
    18. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "Monetary policy evaluation with noisy information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 605-631, April.
    19. Tore Ellingsen & Ulf Soderstrom, 2001. "Monetary Policy and Market Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1594-1607, December.
    20. Luís, Pacheco, 2004. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy in the Euro Area: a tentative model," MPRA Paper 6579, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Alfred V. Guender & David R. Gillmore, 2010. "Practical Monetary Policies," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 25-53, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary Policy; Decision Making;

    JEL classification:

    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General

    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:pri:econom:2000-1. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://economics.princeton.edu/working-papers/ .

    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.