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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Kamei, Kenju; Tabero, Katy |
| Abstract: | Teams are increasingly popular decision-making and work units in firms. This paper uses a novel real effort experiment to show that (a) some teams in the workplace reduce their members’ private benefits to achieve a group optimum in a social dilemma and (b) such endogenous choices by themselves enhance their work productivity (per work time production) – a phenomenon called the “dividend of democracy.” In the experiment, worker subjects are randomly assigned to a team of three, and they then jointly solve a collaborative real effort task under a revenue-sharing rule in their group with two other teams, while each individual worker can privately and independently shirk by playing a Tetris game. Strikingly, teams exhibit significantly higher productivity (per-work-time production) when they can decide whether to reduce the return from shirking by voting than when the policy implementation is randomly decided from above, irrespective of the policy implementation outcome. This means that democratic culture directly affects behavior. On the other hand, the workers under democracy also increase their shirking, presumably due to enhanced fatigue owing to the stronger productivity. Despite this, democracy does not decrease overall production thanks to the enhanced work productivity. |
| Keywords: | workplace democracy, moral hazard, experiment, free riding, teamwork |
| JEL: | C92 D02 D72 H42 |
| Date: | 2023–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119269&r=cdm |
| By: | Ozdemir, Ugur; Ozkes, Ali (SKEMA Business School); Sanver, Remzi |
| Abstract: | 2015 elections in Burkina Faso marked a regime change driven by the public uprisings of the year before. The elections were widely taken transparently and freely run, in contrast to past experiences. However, only around two-thirds of the registered voters, who constitute around two-thirds of the voting-age population, cast their vote in the elections. Using data from an original survey experiment, we investigate the determinants of participation in these elections, focusing on the process --- looking at both the registration and voting stages. Using a two-stage sample selection model, we find that socio-demographic and economic indicators are important only in the registration stage, whereas ethnicity becomes the prominent factor in the turnout decisions. |
| Date: | 2023–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:x5wbj&r=cdm |
| By: | Breitmoser, Yves (Universität Bielefeld); Valasek, Justin (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | We report on the results of an experiment designed to disentangle behavioral biases in information aggregation of committees. Subjects get private signals about the state of world, send binary messages, and finally vote under either majority or unanimity rules. Committee decisions are significantly more efficient than predicted by Bayesian equilibrium even with lying aversion. Messages are truthful, subjects correctly anticipate the truthfulness (contradicting limited depth of reasoning), but strikingly overestimate their pivotality when voting (contradicting plain lying aversion). That is, committees are efficient because members message truthfully and vote non-strategically. We show that all facets of behavior are predicted by overreaction, subjects overshooting in Bayesian updating, which implies that subjects exaggerate the importance of truthful messages and sincere voting. A simple one-parameteric generalization of quantal response equilibrium capturing overreaction covers 87 percent of observed noise. |
| Keywords: | committees; incomplete information; cheap talk; information aggregation; laboratory experiment; Bayesian updating; lying aversion; limited depth of reasoning |
| JEL: | C90 D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2023–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2023_018&r=cdm |
| By: | Bayer, Péter |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the evolution of behavior governing strategic network formation. I first propose a general framework of evolutionary selection in non-cooperative games played in heterogeneous groups under assortative matching. I show that evolution selects strate-gies that (i) execute altruistic actions towards others in the interaction group with rate of altruism equal to the rate of assortative matching and (ii) are stable against pairwise coali-tional deviations under two qualifications: pairs successfully coordinate their deviations with probability equaling the rate of assortative matching and externalities are taken into account with the same weight. I then restrict the domain of interaction games to strategic network formation and define a new stability concept for networks called ‘evolutionarily stable networks’. The concept fuses ideas of solution concepts used by evolutionary game theory and network formation games. In a game of communication, evolutionarily stable networks prescribe equal information access. In the classic co-authorship game only the least efficient network, the complete network, is evolutionarily stable. Finally, I present an evolutionary model of homophilistic network formation between identity groups and show that extreme high degrees of homophily may persist even in groups with virtually no preference for it; thus societies may struggle to eliminate segregation between identity groups despite becoming increasingly tolerant. |
| Keywords: | Networks; evolution; relatedness; stability, homophily |
| JEL: | C73 D85 |
| Date: | 2023–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:128722&r=cdm |
| By: | Roy, Sunanda; Wu, Kuan Chuen; Chandra, Abhijit |
| Abstract: | The paper uses the profile decomposition method which decomposes a given profile of voters into hypothetical electorates, to explain disagreement between the induced social rank orders of the candidates under plurality and the Borda count. The family of component profiles responsible for such disagreement are shown to possess a socio-economically interesting feature: In each such profile, a specific candidate is first and last ranked by an equal number of voters. A significant weight of such a profile in the decomposition indicates that the profile of real voters are polarized around the specific candidate in question. The paper proposes preference polarization measures based on the weights of these component profiles and discusses a computationally simple way to obtain these weights, for an arbitrary number of candidates, without resorting to complete profile decomposition of a n!-dimensional vector. The results are potentially useful to measure preference polarization in a field of many candidates. |
| Date: | 2023–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202311301857330000&r=cdm |
| By: | Caleb Cox; Brock Stoddard |
| Abstract: | We examine the allocation of a voluntarily-provided collective good with inequality in endowments or productive capabilities. After group members choose their contributions to a collective good, a third-party allocator distributes the resulting value among the group members. With and without inequality, we find that allocators significantly improve efficiency compared to automatic equal division of the collective good. However, inequality creates a conflict between various notions of equitable distribution, potentially diminishing the allocator’s ability to incentivize contribution. Our results show that inequality in endowments or productive capabilities indeed reduces the effectiveness of allocators compared to the baseline case of equality. Key Words: |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:23-10&r=cdm |
| By: | Snower, Dennis |
| Abstract: | This article's point of departure is that most of life's challenges are collective challenges, to be addressed through collective action that can be successful only when people act beyond enlightened self-interest. This is the opposite of the methodological individualism that underlies mainstream economic and political analysis. The core idea is that to address our collective challenges, we need to coordinate our collective capacities at a scale and scope at which these challenges occur. As our challenges vary through time, often unpredictably, our capacities are continually in danger of becoming decoupled from our challenges. Thus our survival and wellbeing depends on our success in continually recoupling our capacities with our challenges. Such recoupling invariably involves not just cooperation (working with others to achieve one's own goals), but also collaboration (working with others towards common goals). When individuals collaborate, they participate in the purposes and welfare of the social groups in which they are embedded. Recoupling deserves to become a central guide for public policy, business strategy and civic action. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2023-24&r=cdm |
| By: | Aidin Hajikhameneh; Erik O. Kimbrough; Brock Stoddard |
| Abstract: | Research in social science has shown the importance of individualism and collectivism (I/C) in human behavior. Individualists tend to see people in isolation, while collectivists are more prone to see people as interconnected members of groups, and this has consequences for behavior, governance, and economic outcomes. We examine the role of I/C on cooperation experimentally in infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemmas (IRPD) played with in- and outgroup members. We predict that collectivists will be more cooperative, forgiving and defect less with in-group members than out-group members. Individualists are predicted to make similar strategic decisions for in- and out-group members. In an effort to causally affect the I/C scores of our subjects, as well as to strengthen in- and out-group connections, subjects completed a group-identity task prior to the I/C instrument and IRPD in the Strong Identity treatment. In our Weak Identity treatment, subjects completed a task on their own and were simply told they were assigned to groups. During the experiment, across supergames, subjects were randomly matched with in- and out-group partners. Findings reveal that our treatment effects are largely null. The only significant effect on strategic behavior was that larger defection payoffs led to more defection and less cooperation by subjects in all treatments. Key Words: Individualism, collectivism, cooperation, repeated games, strategy, experiments |
| JEL: | C91 C92 C73 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:23-11&r=cdm |