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Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation

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Abstract

We analyse committees of voters who take a decision between two options as a two- stage process. In a discussion stage, voters share non-verifiable information about a private signal concerning what is the best option. In a voting stage, votes are cast and one of the options is implemented. We introduce the possibility of leadership whereby a certain voter, the leader, is more influential than the rest at the discussion stage even though she is not better informed. We study information transmission and characterize the effects of the leader on the deliberation process. We find, amongst others, that both the quality of the decision taken by the committee and how truthful voters are at the discussion stage depends non-monotonically on how influential the leader is. In particular, although a leader whose influence is weak does not disrupt the decision process of the committee in any way, a very influential leader is less disruptive than a moderately influential leader.

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  • Javier Rivas & Carmelo Rodríguez Álvarez, 2014. "Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2014-04, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucm:doicae:1404
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    Cited by:

    1. Mengel, Friederike & Rivas, Javier, 2017. "Common value elections with private information and informative priors: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 190-221.
    2. Bernardo Moreno & María del Pino Ramos-Sosa & Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, 2019. "Conformity and truthful voting under different voting rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(2), pages 261-282, August.
    3. Ding, Huihui & Pivato, Marcus, 2021. "Deliberation and epistemic democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 138-167.
    4. Bernardo Moreno & María del Pino Ramos-Sosa, 2017. "Conformity in voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(3), pages 519-543, March.
    5. Bannikova, Marina & Giménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel), 2015. "Gathering support from rivals: the two agent case with random order," Working Papers 2072/260957, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    6. Bannikova, Marina, 2014. "Gathering support from rivals: the two rivals case," Working Papers 2072/246960, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Committees; Information Aggregation; Leadership; Voting. Length: 34 pages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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