Learning more by doing less

Raphael Boleslavsky and Christopher Cotton
Additional contact information
Raphael Boleslavsky: Department of Economics, University of Miami

No 2012-1, Working Papers from University of Miami, Department of Economics

Abstract: Self-interested agents (e.g., interest groups, researchers) produce verifiable evidence in an attempt to convince a principal (e.g., legislator, funding organization) to act on their behalf (e.g., introduce legislation, fund research). Agents provide less informative evidence than the principal prefers since doing so maximizes the probability the principal acts in their favor. If the principal faces budget or other constraints that limit the number of agents whose proposals she can support, then agents produce more-accurate evidence as they compete for priority. Under reasonable conditions, the principal is better off when her capacity to act is limited.

Keywords: strategic search; evidence production; persuasion; lobbying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 D83 L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2011-10-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Forthcoming: Under Review

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.herbert.miami.edu/_assets/files/repec/wp2012-1.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Learning More by Doing Less (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mia:wpaper:2012-1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Miami, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Daniela Valdivia ().