Optimal Committee Performance: Size versus Diversity

Abstract

The Condorcet Jury Theorem, together with a large and growing literature of ancillary results, suggests two conclusions. First, large committees outperform small committees, other things equal. Second, heterogeneous committees can, under the right circumstances, outperform homogeneous ones, again other things equal. But this literature has done little to bring these two conclusions together. This paper employs simulations to compare the respective contributions of size and difference to optimal committee performance. It demonstrates that the contributions depend dramatically upon bias. In the presence of low bias, committee composition matters little. In the presence of high bias, it can matter a great deal; optimal committee performance, however, does not vary dramatically between low- and high-bias committees.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Ethics Committees: Group Process Concerns and the Need for Research.Gregory J. Hayes - 1995 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 4 (1):83.
Composition and function of ethical committees.W. W. May - 1975 - Journal of Medical Ethics 1 (1):23-29.
Environmental ethics and size.Charles S. Cockell - 2008 - Ethics and the Environment 13 (1):pp. 23-39.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-09-07

Downloads
10 (#1,025,836)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references