Title

Are Two Heads Better than One?: An Experimental Analysis of Group vs. Individual Decisionmaking

Author(s)

Alan S. Blinder Alan Blinder (Princeton University)

John Morgan John Morgan (Princeton University)

Abstract

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 average decision lags. Furthermore, and also surprisingly, there is no significant difference in the decision lag when groups decisions are made by majority rule versus when they are made under a unanimity requirement. In addition, group decisions are on average superior to individual decisions. The results are strikingly similar across the two experiments.

Creation Date

2000-09

Section URL ID

Paper Number

2000-1

URL

http://www.princeton.edu/~blinder/papers/00NBER7909.pdf

File Function

Jel

E50

Keyword(s)

Monetary Policy, Decision Making

Suppress

false

Series

13