Committees, Hierarchies and Polyarchies

Hierarchies versus Committees

This paper compares hierarchical decision-making (dictatorship) with committee decisionmaking (majority rule). We develop a model in which information aggregation occurs either through the communication of soft information (cheap talk) or hard information. Only the communication of hard information results in communication costs as it requires costly state veriÞcation (long discussions, reading...

Optimal sequential decision architectures and the robustness of hierarchies and polyarchies

This paper studies collective decision making in the context of a project selection model. We derive the optimal decision architecture when marginal decision costs are present, and investigate the circumstances under which the hierarchy and polyarchy exist as optimal sequential architectures. Our analysis extends previous results on optimal committee decision-making to a sequential setting, and...

Complexity and organizational architecture

This paper examines how architectural features of organizations, that are made up of individuals screening projects, affect organizational screening performance. The paper explores consequences for organizational design of a theorem (attributed to Von Neumann by Moore and Shannon) on how to build reliable networks using unreliable components. The paper examines general properties of committee d...

board and committees

Delegation, Committees, and Managers

Attempts to economize on decision-making time imply that groups of peers may delegate authority to a small committee of managers even though this means that the information and preferences of the uninvolved players are neglected. Decisions are more likely to be delegated to players with better information and more representative preferences. The possibility of ex post protests may force manager...