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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay (University of Birmingham); Moumita Deb (University of Heidelberg); Johannes Lohse (University of Birmingham); Rebecca McDonald (University of Birmingham) |
| Abstract: | Majority voting is considered an efficient information aggregation mechanism in committee decision-making. We examine if this holds in environments where voters first need to acquire information from sources of varied quality and cost. In such environments, efficiency may depend on free-riding incentives and the 'transparency' regime - the knowledge voters have about other voters' acquired information. Intuitively, more transparent regimes should improve efficiency. Our theoretical model instead demonstrates that under some conditions, less transparent regimes can match the rate of efficient information aggregation in more transparent regimes if all members cast a vote based on the information they hold. However, a Pareto inferior swing voter's curse (SVC) equilibrium arises in less transparent regimes if less informed members abstain. We test this proposition in a lab experiment, randomly assigning participants to different transparency regimes. Results in less transparent regimes are consistent with the SVC equilibrium, leading to less favourable outcomes than in more transparent regimes. We thus offer the first experimental evidence on the effects of different transparency regimes on information acquisition, voting, and overall efficiency |
| Keywords: | Information acquisition, Voting, Transparency, Swing voter's curse |
| JEL: | C92 D71 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bir:birmec:24-01&r=cdm |
| By: | Simona Fabrizi (Department of Economics and Centre for Mathematical Social Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand); Steffen Lippert (Department of Economics and Centre for Mathematical Social Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.); Addison Pan (International Office and Centre for Mathematical Social Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.); Matthew Ryan (School of Economics and Finance, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, and Centre for Mathematical Social Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers a binary decision to be made by a committee- canonically, a jury- through a voting procedure. Each juror must vote on whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. The voting rule aggregates the votes to determine whether the defendant is convicted or acquitted. We focus on the unanimity rule (convict if and only if all vote guilty), and we consider jurors who share ambiguous prior beliefs as in Ellis (2016). Our contribution is twofold. First, we identify all symmetric equilibria of these voting games. Second, we show that ambiguity may drastically undermine McLennan's (1998) results on decision quality: unlike in the absence of ambiguity, the ex ante optimal symmetric strategy profile need not be an equilibrium; indeed, there are games for which it is possible to reduce both types of error starting from any (non-trivial) equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | : ambiguous priors, voting problems, decision quality |
| JEL: | C02 D71 D81 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:2024-01&r=cdm |
| By: | Grosjean, Pauline (UNSW Sydney); Jha, Saumitra (Stanford U); Vlassopoulos, Michael (U of Southampton and IZA, Bonn); Zenou, Yves (Monash U and IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We study the dynamics between local segregation, partisanship, and political polarization. We exploit large-scale, exogenous and high-stakes peer assignment due to universal conscription of soldiers assigned from each of 34, 947 municipalities to French infantry regiments during WWI. We find that municipalities with soldiers serving with the same line regiment converge in their post-war voting behaviors. Soldiers from rural municipalities exposed to more leftist regimental peers become more leftist for the first time after the war, while adjacent municipalities assigned to the right are inoculated against the left. We provide evidence that these differences reflect persuasive information exchanged among peers when the stakes for cooperation and trust are high rather than group conformity. These differences further lead to the emergence of sharp and enduring post-war discontinuities across 435 regimental boundaries that are reflected, not only in voting, but also in violent civil conflicts between Collaborators and Resistants during WWII. |
| JEL: | D74 L14 N44 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:4142&r=cdm |