Many US colleges now use test-optional admissions. A frequent claim is that by not seeing standardized test scores, a college can admit a student body it prefers, say, with more diversity. But how can observing less information improve decisions? This paper proposes that test-optional policies are a response to social pressure on admission decisions. We model a college that bears disutility when it makes admission decisions that “society” dislikes. Going test optional allows the college to reduce its “disagreement cost.” We analyze how missing scores are imputed and the consequences for the college, students, and society.

We study a one-dimensional Hotelling-Downs model of electoral competition with the following innovation: a fraction of candidates have “character” and are exogenously committed to a campaign platform; this is unobservable to voters. Character is desirable, and a voter's utility is a convex combination of standard policy preferences and her assessment of a candidate's character. This structure induces a signaling game between strategic candidates and voters, since a policy platform affects voters' utilities not only directly, but also indirectly through inferences about a candidate's character. The model generates a number of predictions, starting with a failure of the median voter theorem.

A proposer requires a veto player’s approval to change a status quo. Proposer is uncertain about Vetoer’s preferences. We show that Vetoer is typically given a non-singleton menu, or delegation set, of options to pick from. The optimal set balances the extent of compromise with the risk of a veto. We identify conditions for certain delegation sets to emerge, including “full delegation”: Vetoer can choose any action between the status quo and Proposer’s ideal action. By contrast to expertise-based delegation, Proposer gives less discretion to Vetoer when their preferences are more (likely to be) aligned.

An agent advises a principal on selecting one of multiple projects or an outside option. The agent is privately informed about the projects' benefits and shares the principal's preferences except for not internalizing her value from the outside option. We show that for moderate outside option values, strategic communication is characterized by pandering: the agent biases his recommendation toward “conditionally better-looking” projects, even when both parties would be better off with some other project. A project that has lower expected value can be conditionally better-looking. We develop comparative statics and implications of pandering. Pandering is also induced by an optimal mechanism without transfers.

Information Aggregation in Standing and Ad Hoc Committees by S. Nageeb Ali, Jacob K. Goeree, Navin Kartik and Thomas R. Palfrey. Published in volume 98, issue 2, pages 181-86 of American Economic Review, May 2008