Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees

Melissa Leonie Newham, Rune Midjord

Research output: Contribution to conferencePosterResearchpeer-review

Abstract

We develop a structural model to address the question whether, and to what extent, expert panelists engage in herd behavior when voting on important policy questions. Our data comes from FDA advisory committees voting on questions concerning the approval of new drug applications. We utilize a change in the voting procedure from sequential to simultaneous voting to identify herding. Estimates suggest that around half of the panelists are willing to vote against their private assessment if votes from previous experts indicate otherwise and, on average, 9 percent of the sequential votes are actual herd-votes. Temporary committee members are more prone to herding than regular (standing) members. We find that simultaneous voting improves information aggregation given our estimates.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2021
Publication statusPublished - 2021
EventASSA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting - , WWW
Duration: 3 Jan 20215 Jan 2021
https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2021

Conference

ConferenceASSA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting
Country/TerritoryWWW
Period03/01/202105/01/2021
Internet address

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