IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v26y2014i2p170-207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Independence and interdependence: Lessons from the hive

Author

Listed:
  • Christian List

    (London School of Economics, UK)

  • Adrian Vermeule

    (Harvard Law School, USA)

Abstract

There is a substantial class of collective decision problems whose successful solution requires interdependence among decision makers at the agenda-setting stage and independence at the stage of choice. We define this class of problems and describe and apply a search-and-decision mechanism theoretically modeled in the context of honeybees and identified in earlier empirical work in biology. The honeybees’ mechanism has useful implications for mechanism design in human institutions, including courts, legislatures, executive appointments, research and development in firms, and basic research in the sciences. Our paper offers a fresh perspective on the idea of “biomimicry†in institutional design and raises the possibility of comparative institutional analysis across species.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian List & Adrian Vermeule, 2014. "Independence and interdependence: Lessons from the hive," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(2), pages 170-207, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:26:y:2014:i:2:p:170-207
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463114523713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463114523713
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463114523713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dietrich, F.K. & Spiekermann, K., 2010. "Epistemic democracy with defensible premises," Research Memorandum 066, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    2. Michael Kitson, 2005. "Economics for the future," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(6), pages 827-835, November.
    3. Daniel Berend & Luba Sapir, 2007. "Monotonicity in Condorcet’s Jury Theorem with dependent voters," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 28(3), pages 507-528, April.
    4. Dietrich, F.K., 2008. "The premises of condorcet's jury theorem are not simultaneously justified," Research Memorandum 012, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    5. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    6. Austen-Smith, David & Feddersen, Timothy J., 2006. "Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty, and Voting Rules," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 209-217, May.
    7. Dietrich, Franz & Spiekermann, Kai, 2013. "Epistemic Democracy With Defensible Premises1," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 87-120, March.
    8. Elster Jon, 2009. "Excessive Ambitions," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 1-33, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Lundberg, 2020. "The importance of expertise in group decisions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(3), pages 495-521, October.
    2. Pivato, Marcus, 2017. "Epistemic democracy with correlated voters," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 51-69.
    3. George Masterton & Erik J. Olsson & Staffan Angere, 2016. "Linking as voting: how the Condorcet jury theorem in political science is relevant to webometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 945-966, March.
    4. Aureli Alabert & Mercè Farré, 2022. "The doctrinal paradox: comparison of decision rules in a probabilistic framework," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(4), pages 863-895, May.
    5. Bezalel Peleg & Shmuel Zamir, 2012. "Extending the Condorcet Jury Theorem to a general dependent jury," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(1), pages 91-125, June.
    6. Peterson, Mark & Feldman, David, 2018. "Citizen preferences for possible energy policies at the national and state levels," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 80-91.
    7. Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann, 2022. "Deliberation and the Wisdom of Crowds," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22011, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    8. Bezalel Peleg & Shmuel Zamir, 2009. "On Bayesian-Nash Equilibria Satisfying the Condorcet Jury Theorem: The Dependent Case," Discussion Paper Series dp527, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    9. Serguei Kaniovski & Alexander Zaigraev, 2011. "Optimal jury design for homogeneous juries with correlated votes," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 439-459, October.
    10. Dietrich, Franz & Spiekermann, Kai, 2012. "Independent opinions? on the causal foundations of belief formation and jury theorems," MPRA Paper 40137, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2010.
    11. Liu, Shuo, 2019. "Voting with public information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 694-719.
    12. Ben-Yashar, Ruth & Danziger, Leif, 2016. "The unanimity rule and extremely asymmetric committees," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 107-112.
    13. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Leif Danziger, 2014. "On the optimal composition of committees," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(4), pages 973-980, December.
    14. Aureli Alabert & Mercè Farré & Rubén Montes, 2023. "Optimal Decision Rules for the Discursive Dilemma," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 889-923, August.
    15. William J Berger & Adam Sales, 2020. "Testing epistemic democracy’s claims for majority rule," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 22-35, February.
    16. Ding, Huihui & Pivato, Marcus, 2021. "Deliberation and epistemic democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 138-167.
    17. Hyoungsik Noh, 2023. "Conservativeness in jury decision-making," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 151-172, July.
    18. Addison Pan, 2019. "A Note on Pivotality," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-8, June.
    19. Joseph McMurray, 2017. "Ideology as Opinion: A Spatial Model of Common-Value Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 108-140, November.
    20. Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann, 2021. "Social Epistemology," Post-Print halshs-02431971, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:26:y:2014:i:2:p:170-207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.