IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2409.13236.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A knapsack for collective decision-making

Author

Listed:
  • Yurun Ge
  • Lucas Bottcher
  • Tom Chou
  • Maria R. D'Orsogna

Abstract

Collective decision-making is the process through which diverse stakeholders reach a joint decision. Within societal settings, one example is participatory budgeting, where constituents decide on the funding of public projects. How to most efficiently aggregate diverse stakeholder inputs on a portfolio of projects with uncertain long-term benefits remains an open question. We address this problem by studying collective decision-making through the integration of preference aggregation and knapsack allocation methods. Since different stakeholder groups may evaluate projects differently,we examine several aggregation methods that combine their diverse inputs. The aggregated evaluations are then used to fill a ``collective'' knapsack. Among the methods we consider are the arithmetic mean, Borda-type rankings, and delegation to experts. We find that the factors improving an aggregation method's ability to identify projects with the greatest expected long-term value include having many stakeholder groups, moderate variation in their expertise levels, and some degree of delegation or bias favoring groups better positioned to objectively assess the projects. We also discuss how evaluation errors and heterogeneous costs impact project selection. Our proposed aggregation methods are relevant not only in the context of funding public projects but also, more generally, for organizational decision-making under uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Yurun Ge & Lucas Bottcher & Tom Chou & Maria R. D'Orsogna, 2024. "A knapsack for collective decision-making," Papers 2409.13236, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2409.13236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.13236
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Pablo Arribillaga & G. Bergantiños, 2022. "Cooperative and axiomatic approaches to the knapsack allocation problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 318(2), pages 805-830, November.
    2. Felipe A. Csaszar & J. P. Eggers, 2013. "Organizational Decision Making: An Information Aggregation View," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(10), pages 2257-2277, October.
    3. Sah, Raaj Kumar & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1986. "The Architecture of Economic Systems: Hierarchies and Polyarchies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 716-727, September.
    4. George B. Dantzig, 1957. "Discrete-Variable Extremum Problems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 266-288, April.
    5. Dudzinski, Krzysztof & Walukiewicz, Stanislaw, 1987. "Exact methods for the knapsack problem and its generalizations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 3-21, January.
    6. Gerdus Benadè & Swaprava Nath & Ariel D. Procaccia & Nisarg Shah, 2021. "Preference Elicitation for Participatory Budgeting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2813-2827, May.
    7. Schofield, Norman, 2002. "Representative democracy as social choice," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 425-455, Elsevier.
    8. Sah, Raaj Kumar & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1988. "Committees, Hierarchies and Polyarchies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 451-470, June.
    9. Charles R. Schwenk, 1990. "Conflict in Organizational Decision Making: An Exploratory Study of Its Effects in For-Profit and Not-For-Profit Organizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(4), pages 436-448, April.
    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. Nektarios Oraiopoulos & Stylianos Kavadias, 2020. "Is Diversity (Un-)Biased? Project Selection Decisions in Executive Committees," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 906-924, September.
    2. Michael Christensen & Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2020. "Division of roles and endogenous specialization," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(1), pages 105-124.
    3. Harsh Ketkar & Maciej Workiewicz, 2022. "Power to the people: The benefits and limits of employee self‐selection in organizations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 935-963, May.
    4. Davide Consoli & Pier Paolo Patrucco, 2011. "Complexity and the Coordination of Technological Knowledge: The Case of Innovation Platforms," Chapters, in: Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 8 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Timothy Perri, 2018. "Economics of evaluation (with special reference to promotion and tenure committees)," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, February.
    6. Raaj Kumar Sah, 1991. "Fallibility in Human Organizations and Political Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 67-88, Spring.
    7. Teresa Estañ & Natividad Llorca & Ricardo Martínez & Joaquín Sánchez-Soriano, 2020. "On the difficulty of budget allocation in claims problems with indivisible items of different prices," ThE Papers 20/09, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    8. Teresa Estañ & Natividad Llorca & Ricardo Martínez & Joaquín Sánchez-Soriano, 2021. "On the Difficulty of Budget Allocation in Claims Problems with Indivisible Items and Prices," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1133-1159, October.
    9. Ioannides, Yannis M., 2012. "Complexity and organizational architecture," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 193-202.
    10. Nicolas Houy & Izabela Jelovac, 2014. "Drug approval decision times, international reference pricing and strategic launches of new drugs," Working Papers halshs-01072741, HAL.
    11. Oliver Baumann, 2015. "Models of complex adaptive systems in strategy and organization research," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 14(2), pages 169-183, November.
    12. Baharad, Eyal & Ben-Yashar, Ruth & Patal, Tal, 2020. "On the merit of non-specialization in the context of majority voting," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 128-133.
    13. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    14. A. Arrighetti & A. Ninni, 2009. "Firm size and growth opportunities: a survey," Economics Department Working Papers 2009-EP05, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    15. Mie Augier & Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2012. "The Architecture and Management of Knowledge in Organizations," Chapters, in: Richard Arena & Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric (ed.), Handbook of Knowledge and Economics, chapter 19, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Healey, Mark P. & Bleda, Mercedes & Querbes, Adrien, 2021. "Opportunity evaluation in teams: A social cognitive model," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4).
    17. Andres Felipe Cortes & Andreea N. Kiss, 2023. "Is managerial discretion high in small firms? A theoretical framework," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 157-172, January.
    18. Sáenz-Royo, Carlos & Lozano-Rojo, Álvaro, 2023. "Authoritarianism versus participation in innovation decisions," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    19. Tran, Hai & Turkiela, Jason, 2020. "The powers that be: Concentration of authority within the board of directors and variability in firm performance☆," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Pisinger, David, 1995. "An expanding-core algorithm for the exact 0-1 knapsack problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 175-187, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2409.13236. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.