con Pellumb Reshidi, LeeatYariv, Jimmy Chan e Wing Suen

Abstract: Manycommittees—juries, political task forces, etc.—spend time gathering costlyinformation before reaching a decision. We report results from lab experimentsfocused on such information-collection processes. We consider decisionsgoverned by individuals and groups and compare how voting rules affectoutcomes. We also contrast static information collection, as in classicalhypothesis testing, with dynamic collection, as in sequential hypothesistesting. Generally, out-comes approximate the theoretical benchmark andsequential information collection is welfare enhancing relative to staticcollection. Nonetheless, several important departures emerge. Staticinformation collection is excessive, and sequential information collection isnon-stationary, producing declining decision accuracies over time. Furthermore,groups using majority rule yield especially hasty and inaccurate decisions