Rune Midjord

Welcome to my site. My main research interests are in the economics of information, social learning, and collective decision-making. My current work focuses on theoretical and empirical analysis of voting bodies and expert committees.

Copenhagen Business School

Email: rm.eco@cbs.dk

Member of the Microeconomic Research Unit (MRU), University of Copenhagen

PhD (2010): Ca'Foscari University of Venice. Advisor: Piero Gottardi

Recent working papers:

When voters like to be right: An analysis of the Condorcet Jury Theorem with mixed motives (with Tomás Rodríguez Barraquer and Justin Valasek). Forthcoming Journal of Economic Theory

Abstract: We study the aggregation of private information through voting in committees where agents are rewarded based on both the correctness of the committee decision (instrumental payoffs) and the correctness of their vote (expressive payoffs). Surprisingly, we find that even when expressive payoffs are perfectly aligned with instrumental payoffs, expressive payoffs can prevent committees from aggregating private information, suggesting that committees will make better decisions if agents are not held individually responsible for the correctness of their vote. We show that this finding holds in situations with heterogeneous expressive payoffs and reputation payoffs that depend on the aggregate profile of votes. Download

Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees (with Melissa Newham)

Abstract: We develop a structural model to address the question whether, and to what extent, expert panelists engage in herd behavior when voting on important policy questions. Our data comes from FDA advisory committees voting on questions regarding new drug applications. We utilize a change in the voting procedure from sequential to simultaneous voting to identify herding. Estimates suggest that half of the panelists are willing to vote against their private assessment if votes from previous experts indicate otherwise. Simulations show that 9 percent of the sequential votes would have been different if the panelists had not observed the vote-history. Download

Publications

Voting in large committees with disesteem payoffs: A ‘state of the art’ model (2017) (with Tomás Rodríguez Barraquer and Justin Valasek). Games and Economic Behavior. 104, p. 430-443. Download

Full Implementation of Rank-Dependent Prizes (2013). Economics Letters. 119, 3, p. 261–263. Download

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