An Experimental Study of Jury Deliberation
نویسندگان
چکیده
We study the e¤ects of deliberation on collective decisions. In a series of experiments, we vary groupspreference distributions (between common and conicting interests) and the institutions by which decisions are reached (simple majority, two-thirds majority, and unanimity). When deliberation is prohibited, di¤erent institutions generate signi cantly di¤erent outcomes, tracking the theoretical comparative statics. Deliberation, however, signi cantly diminishes institutional di¤erences and uniformly improves e¢ ciency. Furthermore, communication protocols exhibit an array of stable attributes: messages are public, consistently reveal private information, provide a good predictor for ultimate group choices, and follow particular (endogenous) sequencing. JEL classi cation: C92, D02, D72 Keywords: Jury Decision Making, Deliberative Voting, Strategic Voting. Goeree: Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zürich, Blümlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006, Zürich, Switzerland, and Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Mail code 228-77, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. Yariv: Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Mail code 228-77, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. We thank Gary Charness, Guillaume Frechette, Dino Gerardi, John Kagel, Alessandro Lizzeri, Tom Palfrey, and Lise Vesterlund for many useful conversations and suggestions. Lauren Feiler, Salvatore Nunnari, and Julian Romero provided us with superb research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge nancial support from the National Science Foundation (SES 0551014) and the Dutch National Science Foundation (VICI 453.03.606). An Experimental Study of Jury Deliberation 1
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