Meetings with costly participation

We study a collective decision-making process in which people interested in an issue may participate, at a cost, in a meeting, and the resulting decis ion is a compromise among the participants' preferences, We show that the e quilibrium number of participants is small and their positions are extreme, and when the compromise is the median, the outcome is likely to be random. The model and its equilibria are consistent with evidence on the procedure s and outcomes of U.S. regulatory hearings. (JEL D7, H0, L5).