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Published April 1, 2018 | Submitted
Journal Article Open

Deliberating Collective Decisions

Abstract

We present a dynamic model of sequential information acquisition by a heterogeneous committee. At each date, agents decide whether to vote to adopt one of two alternatives or continue to collect more information. The process stops when a qualified majority vote for an alternative. Three main insights emerge from our analysis and are consistent with an array of stylized facts regarding committee decision making. First, majority rule is more vulnerable than super-majority rules to the disproportionate influence of impatient committee members. Second, more diverse preferences, more patient members, or more unanimous decision voting rules lead to lengthier deliberation and more accurate decisions. Finally, balanced committees unanimously prefer to delegate deliberation power to a moderate chairman rather than be governed by a rule such as unanimity.

Additional Information

© 2018 Review of Economic Studies Ltd. First version received June 2011; Editorial decision April 2017; Accepted April 2017 (Eds.) This article is the result of a consolidation of 'Does Majority Rule Produce Hasty Decisions?' by Chan and Suen, and 'Sequential Deliberation' by Lizzeri and Yariv. Ben Chiao, Jacques Cremer, John Morgan, Nicola Persico, Debraj Ray, Nikita Roketskiy, and Erik Snowberg provided very helpful conversations and feedback. We thank the editor, Marco Ottaviani, and six anonymous referees for many useful comments and suggestions. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant 1158), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project no. 71171125), the National Science Foundation (SES 0551014), the Shanghai Dongfang Xuezhe Program, and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (project no. HKU753911).

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August 19, 2023
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