This paper studies the aggregation of decentralized information in committees under open and closed voting in the presence of external influence. We show that under one-sided influence decision quality may be nonmonotonic in the committee members' ability. Furthermore, restricting the...

Some committees convene behind closed doors while others publicly discuss issues and make their decisions. This paper studies the role of open and closed committee decision making in presence of external influence. We show that restricting the information of interest groups may reduce the bias...

We study how banks should protect their credit departments against the external influence from potential borrowers. We analyze four mechanisms that are widespread in practice: a credit board with unanimity or simple majority, a hierarchy and an advisory system. A bank faces a trade-off between...

We present a model in which an agent takes actions to affect her reputation with two audiences with diverse preferences. This contrasts with standard reputation models that consider a homogeneous audience. A new aspect that arises is that different audiences may observe outcomes commonly or...

Electoral competition between two expert candidates may lead to inefficient platform choices. The present paper studies electoral competition between two experts and a third uninformed candidate. The latter behaves populistically. This seemingly useless candidate restores efficiency. The paper...

In this paper opposing lobbies influence a politician via contributions. Society may grant access to decision relevant information. Transparency maximizes welfare if the lobbies have a similar size. Secrecy is optimal if their size is comparable, but not too similar.

This paper analyzes endogenous information provision and purchase in over-the-counter (OTC) markets. On the supply side the optimal strategy of an information provider consists of selling identical information to all OTC traders. On the demand side OTC traders have an incentive to buy...