Getting Permission

Abstract

A manager has access to expert advisers. The manager selects at most one project and can implement it only if one expert provides support. The game in which the manager consults experts simultaneously typically has multiple equilibria, including one in which at least one expert supports the manager's favorite project. Only one outcome, the experts' most preferred equilibrium outcome, survives iterated deletion of weakly dominated strategies. We show that no sequential procedure can perform better for the manager than the experts' most preferred equilibrium and exhibit a sequential protocol that does as well. (JEL C72, D23, D82)