Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13203
Authors: S. Nageeb Ali; Aislinn Bohren
Abstract: A Principal appoints a committee of partially informed experts to choose a policy. The experts' preferences are aligned with each other but conflict with hers. We study whether she gains from banning committee members from communicating or "deliberating'' before voting. Our main result is that if the committee plays its preferred equilibrium and the Principal must use a threshold voting rule, then she does not gain from banning deliberation. We show using examples how she can gain if she can choose the equilibrium played by the committee, or use a non-anonymous or non-monotone social choice rule.
Keywords: Information Aggregation; Committees; Deliberation; Collusion
JEL Codes: D7; D8
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Banning deliberation (D72) | Principal's expected payoff (D81) |
| Committee adopts preferred equilibrium (D51) | Principal's expected payoff from banning deliberation is not greater than from allowing it (D72) |
| Committee tacitly colluding (D70) | Principal does not gain from banning deliberation (D72) |
| Principal selects equilibrium played by committee (D71) | Principal can gain from banning deliberation (D72) |
| Principal employs non-standard social choice rules (D71) | Principal can gain from banning deliberation (D72) |