Conflicts and Common Interests in Committees

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2001
Volume: 91
Issue: 5
Pages: 1478-1497

Score contribution per author:

2.681 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Committees improve decisions by pooling members' independent information, but promote manipulation, obfuscation, and exaggeration of private information when members have conflicting preferences. Committee decision procedures transform continuous data into ordered ranks through voting. This coarsens the transmission of information, but controls strategic manipulations and allows some degree of information sharing. Each member becomes more cautious in casting the crucial vote than when he alone makes the decision based on own information. Increased quality of one member's information results in his casting the crucial vote more often. Committees make better decisions for members than does delegation.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:5:p:1478-1497
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25