Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Committee Search Design
Author-Name: Christina Luxen
Author-Email: luxen.christina@gmail.com
Author-Name: Tobias Rachidi
Author-Email: tobias.rachidi@uni-bonn.de

Classification-JEL: D71, D83
Keywords: Committee Search, Sequential Search, Multiple Options

Abstract:  This paper studies the design of committee search procedures. In each time period,
a set of candidates of fixed size arrives, and committee members vote whether
to accept a candidate out of this set or to continue costly search. We examine
the implications of different sample sizes per period on acceptance standards and
welfare, and we derive the welfare-maximizing number of candidates per period
for small magnitudes of search costs. There is a trade-off between the expected
value of a candidate conditional on stopping and the expected search costs. The
resolution of this trade-off depends on the voting rule and the shape of the search
cost function. In particular, we show that, for all cost functions and all qualified
majority voting rules other than unanimity, welfare is increasing in the number of
candidates per period if the magnitude of search costs is sufficiently small. This
result stands in contrast to the classic finding for the single decision-maker case
where the evaluation of multiple candidates per period does not improve welfare
relative to reviewing one candidate at a time if there are no economies of scale
in the simultaneous evaluation of multiple candidates.

Note: 
Length: 65
Creation-Date: 2021-05
Revision-Date: 
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp203
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2020_203v2