Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/150129 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Citation: 
[Journal:] Theoretical Economics [ISSN:] 1555-7561 [Volume:] 4 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] The Econometric Society [Place:] New York, NY [Year:] 2009 [Pages:] 227-252
Publisher: 
The Econometric Society, New York, NY
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes the optimal size of a deliberating committee where (i) there is no conflict of interest among individuals and (ii) information acquisition is costly. The committee members simultaneously decide whether to acquire information, and then make the ex-post efficient decision. The optimal committee size, k*, is shown to be bounded. The main result of this paper is that any arbitrarily large committee aggregates the decentralized information more efficiently than the committee of size k*-2. This result implies that oversized committees generate only small inefficiencies.
Subjects: 
Voting
information aggregation
costly information
JEL: 
D72
D81
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.