Decision-making in Committees

hao li, university of toronto
wing suen, university of hong kong

Abstract

This article reviews recent developments in the theory of committee decision-making. A committee consists of self-interested members that make a public decision by aggregating imperfect information dispersed among them according to a pre-specified decision rule. We focus on costly information acquisition, strategic information aggregation, and rules and processes that enhance the quality of the committee decision. Seeming inefficiencies of the committee decision-making process such as over-cautiousness, voting, and delay emerge as partial remedies to these incentive problems.