הסדנה לניתוח כלכלי של המשפט – יגאל ארנון ושות' שמחה לארח את נעמי גרשוני

המאמר מציג ראיות אמפיריות לכך שבניגוד למחשבה הרווחת, פאנלים של מגשרים דווקא מביאים לתוצאות יותר קיצוניות לעומת מקרים של מגשר יחיד. 

Abstract

 The importance of understanding the systematic differences between group and individual

decisions has been well recognized in the literature. However, the vast majority of empirical

evidence on this issue is derived from laboratory experiments, and hence does not reflect

professional incentives and career concerns, both of which may play a crucial role. To fill this

gap, I exploit a unique regulatory change that exogenously decreased the number of presiding

arbitrators from three to one for a specific class of cases in the Financial Industry Regulatory

Authority arbitration as well as an original data set of arbitration awards. The findings indicate

that sole arbitrators tend to render more moderate awards when compared to panels of three

arbitrators. Adding arbitrator fixed-effects to the model confirms that this tendency is also

present within arbitrators, implying that the same arbitrators are inclined towards more extreme

“all or nothing” decisions when in groups. This finding rules out the possibility that the

effect is driven by differences in the selection of arbitrators into panels. Rather, evidence supports

a novel explanation of the polarization of groups: namely, individuals’ concerns about

adverse effects of extreme decisions on their reputation are mitigated within groups, in which

individual opinions are at least partially obscured.