Swank, O. and Visser, B. (2023). Committees as active audiences: Reputation concerns and information acquisition Journal of Public Economics, 221.

We study committees that acquire information, deliberate, and vote. A member cares about state-dependent decision payoffs and his reputation for expertise. The state remains unobserved. In such environments, members{\textquoteright} internal reputations are based on deliberation patterns, while members{\textquoteright} external reputations are based on the observed group decision. We find that either form of reputation concerns creates strategic complementarity among members{\textquoteright} effort levels. Internal reputations create stronger incentives to become informed than external reputations. Their strength grows in committee size; external reputations create no incentives in large committees. Finally, reputation concerns may relax participation constraints.