Why do committees exist? The extant literature emphasizes that they pool dispersed information across members. In this paper, we argue that they may also serve to discourage outside influence or capture by raising its cost. As such, committees may contain members who add no new information to...

We examine the consequences of vote transparency in committees whose members fear being blamed by partisan observers for casting an unfavorable vote. We show that such social pressure, like optimal taxation, can improve the collective decision by mitigating a voting externality. Hence,...

A committee of experts votes between a multi-attribute alternative and status quo. Each expert is a biased specialist who can privately evaluate only one attribute and puts more weight on it. We study whether a social-minded principal would compose the committee of more or less biased experts....