Endogenous competence and a limit to the Condorcet Jury Theorem

McCannon, Bryan C.; Walker, Paul E.

doi:10.1007/s11127-016-0366-z

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…The question becomes how this marginal benefit/marginal cost calculation of Equation is affected by the size of the committee the individual is a member of. As shown by McCannon and Walker (), the term

\frac{\partial P}{\partial e_{i}}

decreases as n increases,

\frac{\partial P ((), n^{'})}{\partial e_{i}} - \frac{\partial P ((), n)}{\partial e_{i}} < 0

for n′ > n . The intuition for this feature is that as the group size expands, the probability an individual is the decisive, swing voter decreases.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Exerting effort to make a good decision, though, is costly. As shown theoretically by Persico (2003), Martinelli (2006Martinelli ( , 2007, and McCannon and Walker (2016), this logic extends to decision making on a committee. If one's competence is endogenous and costly, then a participant has the incentive to be a free-rider on the competence of the other committee members.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…As shown theoretically by McCannon and Walker (2016), the free riding problem is magnified when the committee's size increases. When the number of individuals on the committee grows, they show that each individual's incentive to invest in their competence diminishes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

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Individual Competence and Committee Decision Making: Experimental Evidence

McCannon

Walker

2020

Southern Economic Journal

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Committee decision making relies on the competence of its members. The individual's competence is driven by the pre‐meeting efforts. These investments constitute a public good and, consequently, free riding is a concern. We build off of previous theoretical results which point out that as committees grow in size, free riding becomes more severe. However, experimental and empirical research suggests that individuals are willing to make voluntary contributions. This motivation should lead to increased effort when the number who benefit increases. To differentiate between these hypotheses we explore experimentally the effect that changes in group size have on competence investment decisions in a committee setting. Decision problems differ by whether the expansion increases the number of voters on the committee or the number who are affected by the committee's decision. We find evidence supporting the hypothesis that as committees grow in size there is a reduction in effort invested. We find some evidence of an adverse reaction to non‐contributing beneficiaries is observed as well. Heterogeneous responses arise and are explored.

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\frac{\partial P}{\partial e_{i}}

decreases as n increases,

\frac{\partial P ((), n^{'})}{\partial e_{i}} - \frac{\partial P ((), n)}{\partial e_{i}} < 0

for n′ > n . The intuition for this feature is that as the group size expands, the probability an individual is the decisive, swing voter decreases.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

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Individual Competence and Committee Decision Making: Experimental Evidence

McCannon

Walker

2020

Southern Economic Journal

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“…Challengers win the contested election in 36% of primaries and 32% of general elections. Similarly, in a data analysis of prosecutor elections in North Carolina, Bandyopadhyay and McCannon (, ) show that 31% of offices in 2006 and 18% in 2010 had vacancies to be filled. Of those where the incumbent ran for reelection, 78% and 94%, respectively, were uncontested.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Taking on the boss: Informative contests in prosecutor elections

McCannon

Pruitt

2018

J Public Economic Theory

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The United States is unique in that most states select their prosecutors using popular election. An interesting feature of prosecutor elections is that the pool of potential challengers to an incumbent comes primarily from subordinates within the office. We develop a signaling model that analyzes whether entry into the political race by a subordinate provides voters with useful information. We challenge the commonly held presumption that the election mechanism is ineffective. Exploring the decision of an insider to challenge the boss, we demonstrate that a challenger can strategically convey information about the incumbent's quality by entering the race. Anticipating this, poor incumbents exit. Thus, the model matches empirical observations of rare contested elections and rather modest vacancy rates.Compared to the situation where outsiders challenge the incumbent, the election mechanism is effective.

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“…Models where individual decision makers in a group may incur effort or informational costs, affecting group outcomes, include Martinelli (2006), Koriyama and Szentes (2009), Cai (2009), and Triossi (2013. In McCannon and Walker (2016), jurors endogenously choose to invest in acquiring "competence" and can free ride on each other's investments. More generally, the Condorcet jury theorem has spawned a vast literature, which does not necessarily consider costly participation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Should Jurors Deliberate?

Guha

2019

Review of Law &Amp; Economics

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Does the accuracy of verdicts improve or worsen if individual jurors on a panel are barred from deliberating prior to casting their votes? I study this question in a model where jurors can choose to exert costly effort to improve the accuracy of their individual decisions. I find that, provided the cost of effort is not too large, it is better to allow jurors to deliberate if jury size exceeds a threshold. For panels smaller than this threshold, it is more effective to instruct jurors to vote on the basis of their private information, without deliberations, and to use a simple majority rule to determine the collective decision (regardless of the voting rule used with deliberations). The smaller the cost of paying attention, the larger the threshold above which the switch to allowing deliberations becomes optimal. However, if the unanimity rule had to be maintained under the no-deliberations system, it would be better to allow deliberation. The results apply to binary decision making in any committee where the committee members incur some effort in reviewing the evidence. Examples are arbitration panels and tenure and promotion committees and some board of director meetings on issues such as whether to dismiss a CEO. As an extension I consider the case where jurors differ in their costs of effort.

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Endogenous competence and a limit to the Condorcet Jury Theorem

Cited by 11 publications

References 52 publications

Individual Competence and Committee Decision Making: Experimental Evidence

Individual Competence and Committee Decision Making: Experimental Evidence

Taking on the boss: Informative contests in prosecutor elections

Should Jurors Deliberate?

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