Premium
HOW DELEGATING AUTHORITY BIASES SOCIAL CHOICES
Author(s) -
TANSEY MICHAEL M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1998.tb00538.x
Subject(s) - delegate , persuasion , openness to experience , voting , microeconomics , economics , social psychology , public economics , political science , psychology , computer science , law , politics , programming language
Delegating authority can bias social choices. The bias derives from the persuasion process that accompanies social decision making. When decision makers can decide to delegate their authority, asymmetries in decision makers' persuasiveness and openness to persuasion can play an important role in distorting the outcomes of social choices. When permitted in social decision making, such ad hoc delegating may favor extreme points of view and may force more group decisions to formal, social‐choice mechanisms such as voting.