Jury Size and the Free Rider Problem

Mukhopadhaya, Kaushik

doi:10.1093/jleo/19.1.24

Cited by 127 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…From the theoretical standpoint, Ordeshook and Palfrey (1988), Austen-Smith and Banks (1996) and Pesendorfer (1996, 1997) first studied Bayesian equilibria of voting in committees with private information. Mukhopadhaya (2005), Persico (2004), Martinelli (2006Martinelli ( , 2007, and Gerardi and Yariv (2008) introduced costly information acquisition in collective decision environments. Our theoretical model differs from that literature in that we allow for abstention in a situation in which voters have heterogenous information costs, and we considers unanimity voting in addition to majority voting.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ignorance and bias in collective decisions

Elbittar

Gomberg

Martinelli

et al. 2020

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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ABSTRACT. We study theoretically and experimentally a committee with common interests. Committee members do not know which of two alternatives is the best, but each member can acquire privately a costly signal before casting a vote under either majority or unanimity rule. In the experiment, as predicted by Bayesian equilibrium, voters are more likely to acquire information under majority rule, and attempt to counter the bias in favor of one alternative under unanimity rule. As opposed to Bayesian equilibrium predictions, however, many committee members vote when uninformed. Moreover, uninformed voting is strongly associated with a lower propensity to acquire information. We show that an equilibrium model of subjective prior beliefs can account for both these phenomena, and provides a good overall fit to the observed patterns of behavior both in terms of rational ignorance and biases. On trouve de plus, que si la probabilité de la voix de chaque Votant est plus grande que 1 2 , c'est-à-dire, s'il est plus probable qu'il jugera conformément à la vérité, plus le nombre des Votans augmentera, plus la probabilité de la vérité de la décision sera grande : la limite de cette probabilité sera la certitude [. . . ] Une assemblée très-nombreuse ne peut pas être composée d'hommes très-éclairés; il est même vraisemblable que ceux qui la forment joindront sur bien des objets beaucoup d'ignorance à beaucoup de préjugés. Condorcet (1785) [1986, p. 29-30]

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ignorance and bias in collective decisions

Elbittar

Gomberg

Martinelli

et al. 2020

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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“…Moreover, in the zone where the APSE and the SMSE coexist in the bias-free model, it is not clear which would be chosen. According to Mukhopadhyaya (2003), the problem of determining which jurors pay attention and which do not may be severe in an APSE, since all jurors are essentially alike, whereas a mixed strategy equilibrium has the advantage of being symmetric and therefore requiring identical behavior from every juror. If we apply this argument to our model, the case for a small jury panel increases when there is no bias.…”

Section: Discussion and An Application To Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since there is no information sharing, it is not enough for just one juror to pay attention in a pure strategy equilibrium, unlike in Mukhopadhyaya (2003). In a pure strategy equilibrium, a juror either pays attention or sleeps.…”

Section: Asymmetric Pure Strategy Equilibriummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mukhopadhyaya (2003) considers a model where identical jurors have to exert costly effort to pay attention, and can free ride on the efforts of other jurors through the deliberation process. Thus, in his model, it is sufficient for just one juror to pay attention (with a perfectly informative signal) to ensure the correct outcome, and the pure strategy equilibrium in his model is independent of jury size.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Secret ballots and costly information gathering: The jury size problem revisited

Guha

2018

International Review of Law and Economics

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Suppose paying attention during jury trials is costly, but that jurors do not pool information (as in contemporary Brazil, or ancient Athens). If inattentive jurors are as likely to be wrong as right, Ifind that small jury panels work better as long as identical jurors behave symmetrically. If not paying attention makes error more likely than not, jurors may co-ordinate on two different symmetric outcomes: a "high-attention" one or a "low attention" one. If social norms stigmatize shirking, jurors co-ordinate on the high-attention equilibrium, and a smaller jury yields better outcomes. However, increasing the jury up to a finite bound works better if norms are tolerant of shirking, in which case co-ordination on the low-attention outcome results. If the cost of attention is high, a bare majority of jurors pay attention, and efficiency increases in jury size up to a bound. The model also applies to elections and referendums.

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“…A decline in a group's members willingness to cooperate with increasing group size is a common phenomena in social psychology and experimental economics (e.g., Olson, 1994;Spoor and Kelly, 2004). As a group grows larger, many problems appear: there is more misbehavior, free riding, members of larger groups tend to be less satisfied with their membership, are absent more often, contribute less often to group activities, and are less likely to cooperate with one another (Markham et al, 1982;Albanese and van Fleet, 1985;Brewer and Kramer, 1986;Kerr, 1989;Levine and Moreland, 1990;Mukhopadhaya, 2003;Forsyth, 2006, ch. 9).…”

Section: Proposition 1 a Parent Firm's Evolving Corporate Culture Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

A corporation’s culture as an impetus for spinoffs and a driving force of industry evolution

2013

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In infant industries, a great share of new market opportunities is depleted by firms that spinoff from incumbents. A model emphasizing the relation between incumbents' evolving corporate cultures and the generation of spinoffs explains this regularity in industry evolution. Organizations reach a critical size that entails the collapse of a cooperative culture and triggers the exodus of personnel founding own firms. Thereby, organizations with a cooperative culture active in a dynamic business environment provide ideal training grounds for potential founders. We relate our findings to empirical evidence on developmental patterns in industries, such as genealogies and performance of spinoffs.

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Jury Size and the Free Rider Problem

Cited by 127 publications

References 6 publications

Ignorance and bias in collective decisions

Ignorance and bias in collective decisions

Secret ballots and costly information gathering: The jury size problem revisited

A corporation’s culture as an impetus for spinoffs and a driving force of industry evolution

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