We consider a committee facing a binary decision under uncertainty. Each member holds some private information. Members may have different preferences and initial beliefs, but they all agree which decision should be taken in each of the two states of the world. We characterize the optimal...

To efficiently realize a specified goal in a distributive fashion, there needs to be an appropriate 'division of labor.' This is true for distributive algorithms that take advantage of the concurrent features of the new generation of computers. This is true in the design of a complex...