In:
American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 113, No. 1 ( 2019-02), p. 55-76
Abstract:
We experimentally investigate the informational theory of legislative
committees (Gilligan and Krehbiel 1989). Two committee members provide policy-relevant information to a legislature under alternative legislative rules.
Under the open rule, the legislature is free to make any decision; under the closed rule, the legislature chooses between a member’s
proposal and a status quo . We find that even in the
presence of biases, the committee members improve the legislature’s decision by providing useful information. We obtain evidence for two
additional predictions: the outlier principle ,
according to which more extreme biases reduce the extent of information transmission; and the distributional
principle , according to which the open rule is more
distributionally efficient than the closed rule. When biases are less extreme, we find that the distributional principle dominates the restrictive-rule principle , according to
which the closed rule is more informationally efficient. Overall, our findings provide experimental support for Gilligan and
Krehbiel’s informational theory.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0003-0554
,
1537-5943
DOI:
10.1017/S000305541800059X
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
2019
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2010035-8
detail.hit.zdb_id:
123621-0
SSG:
7,26
SSG:
3,6
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