We report the results of two sets of experiments comparing decisions made as individuals to those made in groups under majority and unanimity rule. The first setup posed a purely statistical problem devoid of any economic content: Subjects were asked to guess the composition of an (electronic)...

We measure the relative contribution of the deviation of real activity from its equilibrium (the gap), “supply-shock” variables, and long-horizon inflation forecasts for explaining the U.S. inflation rate in the post-war period. For alternative specifications for the inflation-driving...

In an earlier paper (Blinder and Morgan, 2005), we created an experimental apparatus in which Princeton University students acted as ersatz central bankers, making monetary policy decisions both as individuals and in groups. In this study, we manipulate the size and leadership structure of...

Two laboratory experiments - one a statistical urn problem, the other a monetary policy experiment - were run to test the commonly-believed hypothesis that groups make decisions more slowly than individuals do. Surprisingly, this turns out not to be true there is no significant difference in...

We report the results of two sets of experiments comparing decisions made as individuals to those made in groups under majority and unanimity rule. The first setup posed a purely statistical problem devoid of any economic content: Subjects were asked to guess the composition of an (electronic)...

We offer a model of "negative vote buying"--paying voters to abstain. Although negative vote buying is feasible under the open ballot, it is never optimal. In contrast, a combination of positive and negative vote buying is optimal under the secret ballot: Lukewarm supporters are paid to show up...

Platform competition is ubiquitous, yet platform market structure is little understood. Theory models typically suffer from equilibrium multiplicity--platforms might coexist or the market might tip to either platform. We use laboratory experiments to study the outcomes of platform competition....

This paper presents theory and experiments to investigate how network architecture influences route-choice behavior. We consider changes to networks that, theoretically, exhibit the Pigou- Knight-Downs and Braess Paradoxes. We show that these paradoxes are specific examples of more general...

We study a Condorcet jury model where voters are driven by instrumental and expressive motives. We show that arbitrarily small amounts of expressive motives significantly affect equilibrium behavior and the optimal size of voting bodies. Enlarging voting bodies always reduces accuracy over some...