Decision Rules for the Academy Awards Versus Those for Elections

Many researchers have evaluated various decision rules to determine how well they perform in selecting winners in elections. They have established criteria to measure how well these rules perform in selecting winners with the greatest mass appeal in general elections. We evaluate such decision rules on their performance in determining winners of awards for outstanding accomplishment. We examined the procedures the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses to choose nominees and winners for Academy Awards. We chose this example for two reasons. First, the academy uses several decision rules to select nominees and to select the winners from the lists of final nominees. Second, Academy Awards have an enormous impact on earnings and careers. We found that decision rules that can have negative effects in elections based on mass appeal can have positive aspects in determining winners of awards for outstanding accomplishment.