We study the susceptibility of committee governance (e.g. by boards of directors), modelled as the collective determination of a ranking of a set of alternatives, to manipulation of the order in which pairs of alternatives are voted on—agenda-manipulation. We exhibit an agenda strategy called insertion sort that allows a self-interested committee chair with no knowledge of how votes will be cast to do as well as if she had complete knowledge. Strategies with this ‘regret-freeness’ property are characterised by their efficiency, and by their avoidance of two intuitive errors. What distinguishes regret-free strategies from each other is how they prioritise among alternatives; insertion sort prioritises lexicographically.

What are the value and form of optimal persuasion when information can be generated only slowly? We study this question in a dynamic model in which a “sender” provides public information over time subject to a graduality constraint, and a decision maker takes an action in each period. Using a novel “viscosity” dynamic programming principle, we characterize the sender's equilibrium value function and information provision. We show that the graduality constraint inhibits information provision relative to unconstrained persuasion. The gap can be substantial, but closes as the constraint slackens. Contrary to unconstrained persuasion, less‐than‐full information may be provided even if players have aligned preferences but different prior beliefs.

An agent privately observes a technological breakthrough that expands utility possibilities, and must be incentivised to disclose it. The principal controls the agent's utility over time. Optimal mechanisms keep the agent only just willing to disclose promptly. In an important case, a deadline mechanism is optimal: absent disclosure, the agent enjoys an efficient utility before a deadline, and an inefficiently low utility afterwards. In general, optimal mechanisms feature a (possibly gradual) transition from the former to the latter. Even if monetary transfers are permitted, they may not be used. We apply our results to the design of unemployment insurance schemes.

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