COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 1782

Efficient Search by Committee

Dirk Bergemann and Juuso Välimäki

January 2011

This note constructs an efficient mechanism for finding the best candidate for a committee from a sequence of potential candidates. Committee members have independent private values information about the quality of the candidate. The mechanism selects the best candidate according to the standard utilitarian welfare criterion. Furthermore, the mechanism can be modified to have a balanced budget.

JEL Classification: C72, D43, D82, D83, H41

Keywords: Search, Committtees, Voting, Mechanism design, Dynamic pivot mechanism