Information aggregation and communication in committees

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences Vol. 364; no. 1518; pp. 763 - 769
• Main Authors: Austen-Smith, David, Feddersen, Timothy J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London The Royal Society 27-03-2009
• Subjects: Aggregation; Committee Membership; Committees; Communication; Decision Making - physiology; Game theory; Hiring; Humans; Information; Information economics; Juries; Majority rule; Mental Processes - physiology; Review; Voting; Voting behavior; Voting paradox
• ISSN: 0962-8436; 1471-2970
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0256

In this paper, we attempt to explain the underlying strategic incentives confronting individuals when they must make a collective decision over a set of alternatives and each has information that is decision-relevant for others. A significant literature has emerged in formal political theory over the past several years that focuses on such problems, paying particular attention, first, to the extent to which voting can be expected to aggregate committee members' information and, second, to the role of communication among committee members prior to voting. Inter alia, this literature reveals a surprisingly subtle interaction between the voting rules used to make decisions and the incentives for committee members to share information prior to voting.