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A conclave is a voting mechanism in which a committee selects an alternative by voting until a sucient supermajority is reached. We study experimentally welfare properties of simple three-voter conclaves with privately known preferences over two outcomes and waiting costs. The resulting game is a form of multiplayer war of attrition. Our key nding is that, consistent with theoretical predictions, when voters are ex ante heterogeneous in terms of the intensity of their preferences the conclave leads to eciency gains relative to simple majority voting. We also compare welfare properties of a static versus a dynamic version of a conclave. When social cost of waiting is taken into account, the dynamic conclave is superior in terms of welfare than its static version.JEL classication: C78, C92, D72, D74

Simple majority does not reflect the intensity of voters' preferences. This paper presents an efficient collective choice mechanism when the choice is binary and the designer may use non-trasferable punishments to persuade agents to reveal their private information. The designer faces a dilemma -a punishment may induce a more correct choice, but its cost is socially wasteful. The efficient mechanism is a weighted majority. Weight of each individual is known ex ante and no punishments applied if preferences are relatively homogenous. Eliciting types through punishments in order to construct type-specific weights should occur if preference intensity is relatively heterogeneous, or if voters preferences represent a larger population.

This paper shows that there are strong reputational effects in a general class of second price auctions. If reputation is one‐sided and bidders are patient, then the bidder without reputation does not challenge the other bidder often. Consequently, the bidder with reputation obtains most of the surplus, the other bidder and the seller get very little. If reputation is two‐sided, then the bidders engage in a game akin to War of Attrition. The resulting payoff is very low for the bidders and very high for the seller. In any case, the Folk Theorem fails: collusion in the second price auctions is impossible. The predictions of the model are that prices in early auctions should reach levels that are higher than the value of the object, then declining towards the reserve price; a set of strong bidders emerges. A recent series of auctions of spectrum for UMTS services in Europe seems to be consistent with the predictions of the model.

We study communication in committees selecting one of two alternatives when consensus is required and agents have private information about their preferences. Delaying the decision is costly, so a form of multiplayer war of attrition emerges. Waiting allows voters to express the intensity of their preferences and may help to select the alternative correctly more often than simple majority. In a series of laboratory experiments, we investigate how various rules affect the outcome reached. We vary the amount of feedback and the communication protocol available to voters: complete secrecy about the pattern of support; feedback about this support; public communication; and within-group communication. The feedback no-communication mechanism is worse than no feedback benchmark in all measures of welfare-the efficient alternative is chosen less often, waiting cost is higher, and thus net welfare is lower. Our headline result is that adding communication restores net efficiency, but in different ways. Public communication does poorly in terms of selecting the correct alternative, but limits the cost of delay, while group communication improves allocative efficiency, but has at best a moderate effect on delay.

This paper considers a multi-unit ascending auction with two players and common values. A large set of equilibria in this model is not robust to a small reputational perturbation. In particular, if there is a positive probability that there is a type who always demands many units, regardless of price, then the model has a unique equilibrium payo¤ pro…le. If this uncertainty is only on one side, then the player who is known to be normal lowers her demand in order to stop the auction immediately at the reserve price. Hence, her possibly committed opponent buys all the units she demands at the lowest possible price.If the reputation is on both sides, then a War of Attrition emerges.

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