We study experimentally the effectiveness of communication in common value committees exhibiting publicly known …

Theory predicts that committees of experts may take decisions that look good but are bad and that they show a united … front to impress evaluators. Although evaluators see through this behavior, committees persist in it only to avoid worse … of committees, words speak louder than costly decisions. Evaluators pick this up. Orthogonality tests show that …

. Counterfactual analysis shows that committees add value through aggregating private assessments, but that gains to larger committees … their assessments also have lower precision, mixed committees may not be optimal. …