The Unanimity Rule and Extremely Asymmetric Committees

20 Pages Posted: 9 May 2016

See all articles by Ruth Ben-Yashar

Ruth Ben-Yashar

Bar-Ilan University - Department of Economics

Leif Danziger

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Date Written: April 19, 2016

Abstract

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.

Keywords: unanimity rule, extremely asymmetric committees, optimal composition of committees

JEL Classification: D710

Suggested Citation

Ben-Yashar, Ruth and Danziger, Leif, The Unanimity Rule and Extremely Asymmetric Committees (April 19, 2016). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5859, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2777408 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2777408

Ruth Ben-Yashar

Bar-Ilan University - Department of Economics ( email )

Ramat-Gan, 52900
Israel

Leif Danziger (Contact Author)

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics ( email )

Beer-Sheva 84105
Israel
8-6472295 (Phone)
8-6472941 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.econ.bgu.ac.il/facultym/danziger/main.htm

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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