We study a model of collective decision making with endogenous information collection.Agents collect information about the consequences of a project, communicate, and then vote onthe project. We examine under what conditions communication may increase the probability thatgood decisions are made....

We develop a theoretical framework for studying the effects of interaction on the quaJity of decision-making by monetary policy committees. We show that interaction, i.e. increasing one's expertise through an exchange of views, is most likely not to result in interdependent voting...

This discussion paper led to a publication in the 'European Economic Review' (2013). Vol. 61, pp. 186-204.<P> Rational Expectations (RE) models have two crucial dimensions: 1) agents correctly forecast future prices given all available information, and 2) given expectations, agents solve...</p>

We study two aspects of globalization. It allows a decision-maker to go beyond his own local experience and to learn from other decision-makers in addressing common problems. This improves the identification and diffusion of best practices. It also provides extra information to `markets' that...

An interlock between two firms occurs if the firms share one or more directors in their boards of directors. We explore the effect of interlocks on firm performance for 101 large Dutch firms using a large and new panel database. We use five different performance measures, and for each...

Impact evaluations of development programmes usually focus on a comparison of participants with a control group. However, if the programme generates externalities for non-participants such an approach will capture only part of the programme’s impact. Based on a unique large-scale quantitative...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A HREF="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9148929&fileId=S2050124213000209">'Network Science'</A>, 2014, 96(5), 936-948.<P> This paper analyzes the relationship between unexplained racial/ethnic wage differentials on the one hand and social network segregation, as measured by inbreeding homophily, on the other hand. Our...</p></a>

In experimental investigations of the effect of real incentives, accountability—the implicit or explicit expectation of a decision maker that she may have to justify her decisions in front of somebody else—is often confounded with the incentives themselves. This confounding of accountability...