TY - JOUR
T1 - The unanimity rule and extremely asymmetric committees
AU - Ben-Yashar, Ruth
AU - Danziger, Leif
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - This paper analyzes how to allocate experts into committees that use the unanimity rule to make decisions. We show that an optimal allocation of experts is extremely asymmetric. To reach the optimal allocation, therefore, one needs only to rank the experts in terms of their abilities and then allocate adjacent experts such that an expert's ability tends to vary inversely with the size of his committee. In the special case of three-member committees, we show that the optimal allocation maximizes the sum of the products of the experts' skills in each committee.
AB - This paper analyzes how to allocate experts into committees that use the unanimity rule to make decisions. We show that an optimal allocation of experts is extremely asymmetric. To reach the optimal allocation, therefore, one needs only to rank the experts in terms of their abilities and then allocate adjacent experts such that an expert's ability tends to vary inversely with the size of his committee. In the special case of three-member committees, we show that the optimal allocation maximizes the sum of the products of the experts' skills in each committee.
KW - Extremely asymmetric committees
KW - Optimal composition of committees
KW - Unanimity rule
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84964854633&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jmateco.2016.03.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jmateco.2016.03.008
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AN - SCOPUS:84964854633
SN - 0304-4068
VL - 64
SP - 107
EP - 112
JO - Journal of Mathematical Economics
JF - Journal of Mathematical Economics
ER -