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  3. American Economic Review
  4. September 2000
  5. Meetings with Costly Participation

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Meetings with Costly Participation

  • Martin J. Osborne
  • Jeffrey S. Rosenthal
  • Matthew A. Turner
American Economic Review
vol. 90, no. 4, September 2000
(pp. 927–943)
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Abstract

We study a collective decision-making process in which people interested in an issue may participate, at a cost, in a meeting, and the resulting decision is a compromise among the participants' preferences. We show that the equilibrium number of participants is small and their positions are extreme, and when the compromise is the median, the outcome is likely to be random. The model and its equilibria are consistent with evidence on the procedures and outcomes of U.S. regulatory hearings.

Citation

Osborne, Martin, J., Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, and Matthew A. Turner. 2000. "Meetings with Costly Participation." American Economic Review 90 (4): 927–943. DOI: 10.1257/aer.90.4.927

JEL Classification

  • D71 Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations