The roles of reputation and transparency on the behavior of biased experts

Sylvain Bourjade and Bruno Jullien

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We analyze situations in which an expert is biased toward some decision but cares also about his reputation in the market for experts. The information the expert reveals decreases as his bias moves toward stronger preference for the status quo. We show that it is optimal to publicly disclose both the expert's contribution and his identity. Surprisingly, revealing the intensity of the expert's bias doesn't always improve the information he reveals in equilibrium. The presence of a second expert raises the first expert's incentives to report truthfully when reports are public, but reduces them when they are secret. In particular, having an option to call another expert may be detrimental in terms of information production if reports are not public. Finally, sequential consultation of experts reduces the information obtained when reports are public, but raises it when they are secret.

Keywords: Experts; Bias; Reputation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-hpe and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Journal Article: The roles of reputation and transparency on the behavior of biased experts (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:34813

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