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COMMITTEES AS SUBSTITUTES FOR COMMITMENT *
Author(s) -
Riboni Alessandro
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.658
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1468-2354
pISSN - 0020-6598
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2354.2009.00577.x
Subject(s) - status quo , commit , voting , consistency (knowledge bases) , status quo bias , decision maker , power (physics) , economics , public economics , microeconomics , law and economics , political science , law , computer science , management science , politics , database , artificial intelligence , quantum mechanics , physics , market economy
In this article, policies are negotiated in a committee by playing a dynamic voting game with an endogenous default (or status quo) policy. I show that joining a committee by maintaining a strong agenda setting power is a way for a decision maker to commit to a policy that in absence of committees is not time consistent. The disciplinary role of the endogenous status quo and the heterogeneity of preferences within the committee are two crucial ingredients to obtain this result. As a motivating example, this article focuses on the time consistency of monetary policy.