Article
Social Pressure, Transparency, and Voting in Committees
Journal of Economic Theory
(2019)
Abstract
We examine the consequences of vote transparency in committees whose members
fear being blamed by interested observers for casting an unfavorable vote. We show that
while individually undesirable, such social pressure can improve the collective decision
by mitigating a voting externality. Hence, organizations may adopt public voting when
the fear of blame is too little, and secret voting when the fear is too much. We also show
that public voting is particularly desirable in committees with overly biased members
or overly biased voting rules against the alternative. Anecdotal evidence supports our
findings.
Keywords
- Committee,
- blame,
- transparency,
- social pressure
Disciplines
Publication Date
November, 2019
Citation Information
Alvaro J. Name-Correa and Huseyin Yildirim. "Social Pressure, Transparency, and Voting in Committees" Journal of Economic Theory Vol. 184 (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/huseyin_yildirim/33/