Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17336
Authors: Andrea Mattozzi; Marcos Y Nakaguma
Abstract: We study the effect of transparency of individual votes in committees where members are heterogeneous in competence and bias, they are career-concerned, and they can abstain. We show that public voting attenuates the biases of competent members and secret voting attenuates the biases of incompetent members. Public voting leads to better decisions when the magnitude of the bias is large, while secret voting performs better otherwise. We present novel experimental evidence consistent with our theory.
Keywords: committees; voting; career concern; transparency
JEL Codes: D72; C92; D71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| public voting (D72) | better decisions (D91) |
| public voting (D72) | attenuates biases of competent members (C92) |
| secret voting (D72) | better decisions for incompetent members (D70) |
| secret voting (D72) | attenuates biases of incompetent members (C92) |
| career concerns (J62) | influences voting behavior (K16) |
| public voting (D72) | increases correct voting under high bias (D72) |
| secret voting (D72) | increases abstention under low bias (D91) |