Appointed Learning for the Common Good: Optimal Committee Size and Efficient Rewards

63 Pages Posted: 5 Nov 2020

See all articles by Hans Gersbach

Hans Gersbach

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Akaki Mamageishvili

Offchain Labs

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona

Date Written: September 16, 2020

Abstract

A population of identical individuals must choose one of two alternatives under uncer- tainty about what the right alternative is. Individuals can gather information of increasing accuracy at an increasing convex utility cost. For such a setup, we analyze how vote del- egation to a committee and suitable monetary transfers for its members can ensure that high or optimal levels of information are (jointly) acquired. Our main insight is that to maximize the probability of choosing the right alternative committee size must be small, no matter whether information acquisition costs are private or not. Our analysis and results cover two polar cases—information costs are either private or public--and unravel both the potential and the limitations of monetary transfers in committee design.

Keywords: voting, committees, cost sharing, information acquisition, reward scheme, monetary transfers

JEL Classification: C72, D71, D8

Suggested Citation

Gersbach, Hans and Mamageishvili, Akaki and Tejada, Oriol, Appointed Learning for the Common Good: Optimal Committee Size and Efficient Rewards (September 16, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3693697 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3693697

Hans Gersbach

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research ( email )

Zürichbergstrasse 18
Zurich, 8092
Switzerland
+41 44 632 82 80 (Phone)
+41 44 632 18 30 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Akaki Mamageishvili (Contact Author)

Offchain Labs ( email )

Zurich
Switzerland

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona ( email )

Gran Via, 585
Barcelona, Barcelona 08007
Spain

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