Expert information and majority decisions

Abstract

This paper shows theoretically and experimentally that hearing expert opinions can be a double-edged sword for decision making committees. We study a majoritarian voting game of common interest where committee members receive not only private information, but also expert information that is more accurate than private information and observed by all members. In theory, there are Bayesian Nash equilibria where the committee members' voting strategy incorporates both types of information and access to expert information enhances the efficiency of the majority decision. However, there is a class of potentially inefficient equilibria where a supermajority always follow expert information and the majority decision does not aggregate private information. In the laboratory, too many subjects voted according to expert information compared to the predictions from the efficient equilibria. We found a large efficiency loss due to the presence of expert information when the committee size was large. We suggest that it may be desirable for expert information to be revealed only to a subset of committee members.

The swing voter's curse in social networks

“…By contrast, introducing a public signal on the state of the world prior to the vote changes the picture dramatically. Kawamura and Vlaseros (2016) find that the presence of a public signal generates a new class of equilibria in which voters discard their private information in favor of the public signal and information aggregation is inefficient, even if voters condition their strategy on their pivotality. 7 We introduce a third way of correlating voters' information into the standard model of common interest voting: private communication between voters.…”

Public Information: Relevance or Salience?

“…Subjects in different sessions were presented with the same five treatments. 11 Each subject played thirty rounds with the public signal displayed before the private, and thirty with the private displayed before the public. Among each of these thirty rounds, eight displayed the public message with the jingle, so that it is possible to evaluate the interaction between jingle and recency treatments.…”

“…When in addition a public signal is observed by everyone, voters could use the public information as an information device (depending on accuracy) or as a coordination device (regardless of accuracy). In a recent paper, Reference [11]-henceforth KV-noticed that if the public signal is more precise than each private signal, then majority rule no longer leads to an equilibrium in which every voter always votes according to the private signal. In this setting, there exist a responsive equilibrium where voters change their vote as a function of their own private signals with positive probability, for values of the public signal's accuracy below a certain threshold.…”

Creating Sustained Strategic Capabilities Through Organisational Dynamic Capabilities and Strategies: A Case Study of Rubber Wood Export Industry in Thailand

“…Knowledge management capability in the dynamic environment relates to dynamic strategy. It especially pays attention to the expertise, capability in the form of tacit knowledge that is developed over time until accepted as knowledge champions (Dooley et al, 2002;Kawamura & Vlaseros, 2017;Tiwana & Mclean, 2005). The organisation must create a next generation version of knowledge champions to replace the turnover rate or retirement (natural attrition) rate.…”