IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mia/wpaper/2012-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Learning more by doing less

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Boleslavsky

    (Department of Economics, University of Miami)

  • Christopher Cotton

    (Department of Economics, University of Miami)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Boleslavsky & Christopher Cotton, 2011. "Learning more by doing less," Working Papers 2012-1, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mia:wpaper:2012-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.herbert.miami.edu/_assets/files/repec/wp2012-1.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liad Wagman & Vincent Conitzer, 2012. "Choosing fair lotteries to defeat the competition," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(1), pages 91-129, February.
    2. Emeric Henry, 2009. "Strategic Disclosure of Research Results: The Cost of Proving Your Honesty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1036-1064, July.
    3. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    4. Yeon-Koo Che & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Opinions as Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 815-860, October.
    5. Cotton, Christopher, 2009. "Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 831-842, August.
    6. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    7. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    8. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatr74eao is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Austen-Smith, David, 1998. "Allocating Access for Information and Contributions," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 277-303, October.
    10. Bull, Jesse & Watson, Joel, 2000. "Evidence Disclosure and Verifiability," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt6th0060j, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    11. Bull, Jesse & Watson, Joel, 2004. "Evidence disclosure and verifiability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 1-31, September.
    12. Emeric Henry, 2009. "Disclosure of research results: the cost of proving your honesty," Post-Print hal-01023670, HAL.
    13. Matthew Gentzkow & Emir Kamenica, 2011. "Competition in Persuasion," NBER Working Papers 17436, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. repec:oup:restud:v:84:y::i:1:p:300-322. is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Juan-JosÈ Ganuza & JosÈ S. Penalva, 2010. "Signal Orderings Based on Dispersion and the Supply of Private Information in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1007-1030, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barbos, Andrei, 2013. "Project screening with tiered evaluation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 293-306.
    2. Andrei Barbos, 2014. "Imperfect evaluation in project screening," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 31-46, May.
    3. Boleslavsky, Raphael & Lewis, Tracy R., 2016. "Evolving influence: Mitigating extreme conflicts of interest in advisory relationships," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 110-134.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raphael Boleslavsky & Christopher Cotton, 2018. "Limited capacity in project selection: competition through evidence production," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(2), pages 385-421, March.
    2. Gregor Martin, 2015. "To Invite or Not to Invite a Lobby, That Is the Question," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 143-166, July.
    3. Martin Gregor, 2014. "Receiver's access fee for a single sender," Working Papers IES 2014/17, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised May 2014.
    4. Hedlund, Jonas, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion by a privately informed sender," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 229-268.
    5. Martin Gregor, 2014. "Access fees for competing lobbies," Working Papers IES 2014/22, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jul 2014.
    6. Cotton, Christopher, 2012. "Pay-to-play politics: Informational lobbying and contribution limits when money buys access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 369-386.
    7. Martin Gregor, 2011. "Corporate lobbying: A review of the recent literature," Working Papers IES 2011/32, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Christopher Cotton, 2009. "Competition for Access and Full Revelation of Evidence," Working Papers 2010-12, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    9. Ralph Boleslavsky & Tracy R. Lewis, 2011. "Advocacy and Dynamic Delegation," Working Papers 2011-7, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    10. Boleslavsky, Raphael & Lewis, Tracy R., 2016. "Evolving influence: Mitigating extreme conflicts of interest in advisory relationships," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 110-134.
    11. Hedlund, Jonas, 2014. "Bayesian signaling," Working Papers 0577, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    12. Arnaud Dellis & Mandar Oak, 2020. "Subpoena power and informational lobbying," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 188-234, April.
    13. Hedlund, Jonas, 2015. "Persuasion with communication costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 28-40.
    14. Yeon-Koo Che & Sergei Severinov, 2017. "Disclosure and Legal Advice," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 188-225, May.
    15. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    16. Cheng Li & Christopher Cotton, 2016. "Clueless Politicians," Working Paper 1341, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    17. Claude Fluet & Thomas Lanzi, 2021. "Cross-Examination," Working Papers of BETA 2021-40, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    18. Dahm, Matthias & González, Paula & Porteiro, Nicolás, 2018. "The enforcement of mandatory disclosure rules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 21-32.
    19. Hao Li & Xianwen Shi, 2017. "Discriminatory Information Disclosure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3363-3385, November.
    20. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez‐Richet, 2014. "Certifiable Pre‐Play Communication: Full Disclosure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1093-1131, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    strategic search; evidence production; persuasion; lobbying;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mia:wpaper:2012-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daniela Valdivia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demiaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.