The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games

Economics has devoted little attention to whether the type of decision maker matters for economic decisions. However, many important decisions like those on monetary policy or a company's business strategy are made by (small) groups rather than an individual. We compare behaviour of individuals and small groups in an experimental beauty-contest game. Our findings suggest that groups are not smarter decision makers "per se" but that they learn faster than individuals. When individuals compete against groups, the latter significantly outperform the former in terms of payoff. Copyright 2005 Royal Economic Society.