IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v59y2015i2p475-494.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Information Aggregation and Optimal Structure of the Executive

Author

Listed:
  • Torun Dewan
  • Andrea Galeotti
  • Christian Ghiglino
  • Francesco Squintani

Abstract

We model two aspects of executives in parliamentary democracies: Decision‐making authority is assigned to individuals, and private information is aggregated through communication. When information is relevant to all policies and communication is private, all decisions should be centralized to a single politician. A government that holds cabinet meetings, where information is made available to all decision makers, outperforms one where communication is private: A multimember cabinet can be optimal; it need not be single peaked around the most moderate politician or ideologically connected. Centralization is nonmonotonic in the degree of ideological divergence. In a large cabinet, all power should be given to the most moderate politician. Even when uncertainty is policy specific and a single politician is informed on each policy, power should never be fully decentralized. Our model provides a justification for centralized authority and cabinet meetings that enhance the quality of policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Torun Dewan & Andrea Galeotti & Christian Ghiglino & Francesco Squintani, 2015. "Information Aggregation and Optimal Structure of the Executive," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(2), pages 475-494, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:2:p:475-494
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12121
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12121?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
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Migrow, Dimitri, 2021. "Designing communication hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    2. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Authority and Specialization under Informational Interdependence," Working Papers 142, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    3. Raghul S Venkatesh, 2018. "On Information Aggregation in International Alliances," AMSE Working Papers 1855, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Jul 2019.
    4. Park, Hyungmin & Squintani, Francesco, 2024. "The Choice of Political Advisors," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1507, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Furukawa, Chishio, 2019. "Publication Bias under Aggregation Frictions: Theory, Evidence, and a New Correction Method," EconStor Preprints 194798, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Park, Hyungmin & Squintani, Francesco, 2024. "The Choice of Political Advisors," QAPEC Discussion Papers 23, Quantitative and Analytical Political Economy Research Centre.
    7. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Information Aggregation in Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Working Papers 169, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    8. Gieczewski, Germán, 2022. "Verifiable communication on networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:2:p:475-494. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    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.