How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment

Sebastian Fehrler and Niall Hughes

No 9027, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We investigate the potential of transparency to influence committee decision-making. We present a model in which career concerned committee members receive private information of different type-dependent accuracy, deliberate and vote. We study three levels of transparency under which career concerns are predicted to affect behavior differently, and test the model's key predictions in a laboratory experiment. The model's predictions are largely borne out – transparency negatively affects information aggregation at the deliberation and voting stages, leading to sharply different committee error rates than under secrecy. This occurs despite subjects revealing more information under transparency than theory predicts.

Keywords: committee decision-making; deliberation; transparency; career concerns; information aggregation; experiments; voting; strategic communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D71 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta, nep-exp and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2018, 10, 181-209

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9027.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment (2018)
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment (2015)
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment (2015)
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment (2015)
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation (And Why That May Be A Good Thing) (2014)
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: theory and Experiment
Working Paper: How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9027

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