Frontiers of decision theory : This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, School of Economics and Finance (Albany) Massey University

Abstract

The well-known jury paradox – the more demanding the hurdle for conviction is, the more likely it is that a jury will convict an innocent defendant – heavily relies on Bayesian updating. However, with ambiguous information (e.g., a forensic test with accuracy of 60%, or more), standard Bayesian updating becomes invalid, challenging the existence of this paradox. By developing novel theoretical models and by testing their predictions in laboratory settings, this thesis advances our understanding of how individuals process more realistically imprecise measures of information reliability and how this impacts on information aggregation for the group decision-making. Hence, our findings inform the institutional design of collective deliberation, from small to large group decision-making.