Leadership in groups
Subtitle: a monetary policy experiment
By: Alan S. Blinder, John Morgan.
Contributors: Morgan, John.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13391.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13391.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 36
Subjects: Group decision making; Monetary policy -- Decision making
Description: In an earlier paper (Blinder and Morgan, 2005), we created an experimental apparatus in which Princeton University students acted as ersatz central bankers, making monetary policy decisions both as individuals and in groups. In this study, we manipulate the size and leadership structure of monetary policy decisionmaking. We find no evidence of superior performance by groups that have designated leaders. Groups without such leaders do as well as or better than groups with well-defined leaders. Furthermore, we find rather little difference between the performance of four-person and eight-person groups; the larger groups outperform the smaller groups by a very small margin. Finally, we successfully replicate our Princeton results, at least qualitatively: Groups perform better than individuals, and they do not require more "time" to do so.
Notes: "September 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-36).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).