We analyze voting in private and public committees whose members care about the selected decision and the rewards which outsiders pay for representing their interests. We characterize the voting pattern and performance in both committees; and we test these implications on the voting patterns of...

We analyze optimal appointments to a committee whose members play an admissibly coalition proof equilibrium. The nominator may appoint a candidate with the opposite preference ordering over the agenda, as the committee would then reach the nominator’s top ranked decision by divide and rule:...

We analyze a three-country model of trade negotiations in which countries can form bilateral free trade areas, customs unions or a trilateral preferential trading arrangement, and can continue negotiating after reaching an agreement. In contrast to the literature on multilateral bargaining, the...

According to conventional wisdom, raising the quota either causes a committee to retain the status quo or has no effect on its performance; so a committee which would otherwise reach good decisions should operate with a low quota. We show, per contra, that reducing the quota may improve the...

We analyze voting in private and public committees whose members care about the selected decision and the rewards which outsiders pay for representing their interests. We characterize the voting pattern and performance in both committees; and we test these implications on the voting patterns of...

We analyze optimal appointments to a committee whose members play an admissibly coalition proof equilibrium. The nominator may appoint a candidate with the opposite preference ordering over the agenda, as the committee would then reach the nominator’s top ranked decision by divide and rule:...

According to conventional wisdom, raising the quota either causes a committee to retain the status quo or has no effect on its performance; so a committee which would otherwise reach good decisions should operate with a low quota. We show, per contra, that reducing the quota may improve the...

We analyze a three-country model of trade negotiations in which countries can form bilateral free trade areas, customs unions or a trilateral preferential trading arrangement, and can continue negotiating after reaching an agreement. In contrast to the literature on multilateral bargaining, the...