@techreport{f870817a708d40aea3e90480393fd29b,
title = "Costly Voting in Weighted Committees: The case of moral costs",
abstract = "We develop a theoretical model of voting behavior in committees when members differ in influence and receive payoffs that condition on the individual vote and the collective decision. Applied to a group decision involving moral costs, the model predicts that the distribution of decision-making power affects committee members{\textquoteright} incentives to make immoral choices: More influential agents tend to support the immoral choice, while less influential agents free-ride. A skewed power distribution makes immoral collective choices more likely. We then present results of a laboratory experiment that studies committee members{\textquoteright} voting behavior and collective choices under different distributions of decision-making power. As hypothesized, we find that the frequency of immoral decisions is positively related to an agent{\textquoteright}s voting power.",
keywords = "Moral decision-making, Committees, Decision rules, Deception, Institutions, Threshold public good games, Laboratory experiments",
author = "Maaser, {Nicola Friederike} and Thomas Stratmann",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
day = "20",
language = "English",
series = "Economics Working Papers",
publisher = "Institut for {\O}konomi, Aarhus Universitet",
number = "2021-11",
type = "WorkingPaper",
institution = "Institut for {\O}konomi, Aarhus Universitet",
}