Information Acquisition and Decision Making in Committees : A Survey

This is a survey on the recent game theoretic literature on committee decision making. We consider theoretical work on the role of (i) strategic voting, (ii) costly information acquisition, (iii) conflicting interests, and (iv) communication in committees. Moreover, we review recent experimental evidence on these issues. Our analysis focuses on the optimal size, composition, and decision rules of committees. We discuss implications for the design of monetary policy committees