Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/130298 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9614
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
It is still an open question when groups perform better than individuals in intellective tasks. We report that in an Acquiring a Company game, what prevailed when there was disagreement among group members was the median proposal and not the best proposal. This aggregation rule explains why groups underperformed with respect to a "truth wins" benchmark and why they performed better than individuals deciding in isolation in a simple version of the task but worse in the more difficult version. Implications are drawn on when to employ groups rather than individuals in decision making.
Subjects: 
winner's curse
group decision making
communication
risky shift
herd behavior
JEL: 
C91
C92
D03
D81
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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