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Free keywords:
Committees, Voting, Information Aggregation, Cheap Talk, Experiment
JEL:
C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior
JEL:
D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
JEL:
D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
JEL:
D83 - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
Abstract:
We study experimentally the effectiveness of communication in common value committees exhibiting publicly known heterogeneous biases. We test models assuming respectively self-interested and strategic-, joint payoff-maximizing- and cognitively heterogeneous agents. These predict varying degrees of strategic communication. We use a 2 x 2 design varying the information protocol (communication vs exogenous public signals) and the group composition (heterogeneous vs homogeneous). Results are only consistent with the third model. Roughly 80% of (heuristic) subjects truth-tell and vote with the majority of announced signals. Remaining (sophisticated) agents lie strategically and approximately apply their optimal decision rule.
