Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282134 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 443
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, München und Berlin
Abstract: 
We conduct an experiment in which groups are tasked with evaluating the truth of a set of politically relevant facts and statements, and we investigate whether communication improves information aggregation and the accuracy of group decisions. Our findings suggest that the effect of communication depends on the underlying accuracy of individual judgments. Communication improves accuracy when individuals tend to be incorrect, but diminishes it when individuals are likely to be correct ex ante. We also find that when groups vote independently without communicating, subjects update their beliefs in a manner consistent with interpreting others' votes as mildly informative signals, but not when they communicate beforehand. The chat analysis suggests that group members use communication to present their knowledge of related facts and to engage in interactive reasoning. Moreover, the volume of both types of communication increases with item difficulty.
Subjects: 
collective decisions
voting
communication
JEL: 
D70
D72
D83
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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