Complex Disclosure

Ginger Zhe Jin (), Michael Luca () and Daniel Martin
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Ginger Zhe Jin: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Michael Luca: Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163

Management Science, 2022, vol. 68, issue 5, 3236-3261

Abstract: We present evidence that unnecessarily complex disclosure can result from strategic incentives to shroud information. In our laboratory experiment, senders are required to report their private information truthfully but can choose how complex to make their reports. We find that senders use complex disclosure more than half the time. This obfuscation is profitable because receivers make systematic mistakes in assessing complex reports. Regression and structural analysis suggest that these mistakes could be driven by receivers who are naive about the strategic use of complexity or overconfident about their ability to process complex information.

Keywords: disclosure; complexity; experiments; naivete; overconfidence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4037 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Complex Disclosure (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:68:y:2022:i:5:p:3236-3261

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