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Can Words Get in the Way? The Effect of Deliberation in Collective Decision Making

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  • Matias Iaryczower
  • Xiaoxia Shi
  • Matthew Shum

Abstract

We quantify the effect of deliberation on the decisions of US appellate courts. We estimate a model in which strategic judges communicate before casting their votes and then compare the probability of mistakes in the court with deliberation with a counterfactual of no communication. The model has multiple equilibria, and preferences and information parameters are only partially identified. We find that there is a range of parameters in the identified set--when judges tend to disagree ex ante or their private information is imprecise--in which deliberation can be beneficial; otherwise, deliberation reduces the effectiveness of the court.

Suggested Citation

  • Matias Iaryczower & Xiaoxia Shi & Matthew Shum, 2018. "Can Words Get in the Way? The Effect of Deliberation in Collective Decision Making," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 688-734.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/696228
    DOI: 10.1086/696228
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    Cited by:

    1. Simon Quinn & Tom Gole, 2014. "Committees and Status Quo Bias: Structural Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," Economics Series Working Papers 733, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Camara, Fanny & Dupuis, Nicolas, 2014. "Structural Estimation of Expert Strategic Bias: The Case of Movie Reviewers," TSE Working Papers 14-534, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    3. Mariam Maki Sy & Charles Figuières & Hélène Rey-Valette & Richard B. Howarth & Rutger Wit, 2024. "Valuation of ecosystem services and social choice: the impact of deliberation in the context of two different aggregation rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(3), pages 619-640, November.
    4. Melissa Newham & Rune Midjord, 2019. "Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1825, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Buechel, Berno & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2019. "The swing voter's curse in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 241-268.
    6. Berno Buechel & Lydia Mechtenberg & Alexander F. Wagner, 2022. "When do proxy advisors improve corporate decisions?," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-47, Swiss Finance Institute.
    7. Jonas Radbruch & Amelie Schiprowski, 2023. "Committee Deliberation and Gender Differences in Influence," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_430, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    8. Dugar, Subhasish & Shahriar, Quazi, 2023. "Lying for votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 46-72.
    9. Clark, Tom S. & Montagnes, B. Pablo & Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2022. "Politics from the Bench? Ideology and Strategic Voting in the U.S. Supreme Court," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    10. Pulido, Maria Teresa & Saloma, Caesar, 2020. "Local acceptance and emergence of consensus in a heterogeneous small-world network of agents with and without memory," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 548(C).
    11. Xiaohong Yu & Zhaoyang Sun, 2022. "The company they keep: When and why Chinese judges engage in collegiality," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 936-1002, December.
    12. Nathan Canen & Kristopher Ramsay, 2024. "Quantifying theory in politics: Identification, interpretation, and the role of structural methods," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(4), pages 301-327, October.
    13. Pogorelskiy. Kirill & Shum, Matthew, 2019. "News We Like to Share : How News Sharing on Social Networks Influences Voting Outcomes," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1199, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    14. Francesca Molinari, 2020. "Microeconometrics with Partial Identification," Papers 2004.11751, arXiv.org.
    15. Seyed Mohsen Mirbagheri & Ata Ollah Rafiei Atani & Mohammadreza Parsanejad, 2023. "The Effect of Collective Decision-Making on Productivity: A Structural Equation Modeling," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    16. Chaim Fershtman & Uzi Segal, 2020. "Social Influence in Legal Deliberations," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 999, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 12 Sep 2021.
    17. Francesca Molinari, 2019. "Econometrics with Partial Identification," CeMMAP working papers CWP25/19, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. Jaworski, Taylor, 2020. "Specification and structure in economic history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Martén, Linna, 2015. "Political Bias in Court? Lay Judges and Asylum Appeals," Working Paper Series 2015:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    20. Pogorelskiy, Kirill & Shum, Matthew, 2019. "News We Like to Share: How News Sharing on Social Networks Influences Voting Outcomes," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 427, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).

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