IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20010052.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Producing and Manipulating Information: Private Information Providers versus Public Information Providers

Author

Listed:
  • Robert A.J. Dur

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

  • Otto H. Swank

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

This paper studies the selection of information collecting agents by policy makers in the light of two agency problems. First, it is often hard to ascertain how much effort agents have put in acquiring information. Second, when agents have an interest in the policy outcome, they may manipulate information. We show that unbiased advisers put highest effort in collecting information. Eliminating manipulation of information, however, requires that the preferences of the policy maker and the adviser be aligned. Therefore, policy makers appoint advisers with preferences that are less extreme than their own. See publication in The Economic Journal , 2005, 115(500), 185-199.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert A.J. Dur & Otto H. Swank, 2001. "Producing and Manipulating Information: Private Information Providers versus Public Information Providers," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 01-052/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20010052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/01052.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilligan, Thomas W & Krehbiel, Keith, 1997. "Specialization Decisions within Committee," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 366-386, October.
    2. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    3. Sah, Raaj Kumar & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1988. "Committees, Hierarchies and Polyarchies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 451-470, June.
    4. Swank, Otto H & Letterie, Wilko & van Dalen, Hendrik P, 1999. "A Theory of Policy Advice," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 602-614, October.
    5. Lupia,Arthur & McCubbins,Mathew D., 1998. "The Democratic Dilemma," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521585934, October.
    6. Lohmann, Susanne, 1993. "A Signaling Model of Informative and Manipulative Political Action," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 319-333, June.
    7. Lupia,Arthur & McCubbins,Mathew D., 1998. "The Democratic Dilemma," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521584487, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Austen-Smith David, 1993. "Interested Experts and Policy Advice: Multiple Referrals under Open Rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 3-43, January.
    10. Gilligan, Thomas W & Krehbiel, Keith, 1987. "Collective Decisionmaking and Standing Committees: An Informational Rationale for Restrictive Amendment Procedures," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 287-335, Fall.
    11. Potters, Jan & van Winden, Frans, 1992. "Lobbying and Asymmetric Information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 269-292, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Robert Dur & Otto H. Swank, 2005. "Producing and Manipulating Information," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 185-199, January.
    2. Swank Otto H., 2000. "Seeking information: the role of information providers in the policy decision process," Public Economics 0004004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Frisell, Lars, 2000. "Taking Advice from Imperfectly Informed Lobbyists: When to Match Hawks with Hawks," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 355, Stockholm School of Economics.
    4. Minozzi, William & Woon, Jonathan, 2016. "Competition, preference uncertainty, and jamming: A strategic communication experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 97-114.
    5. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    6. William Minozzi & Jonathan Woon, 2013. "Lying aversion, lobbying, and context in a strategic communication experiment," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(3), pages 309-337, July.
    7. Neunzig, Alexander R., 2002. "Effiziente Fixlöhne, Arbeitsfreude und Crowding-Effekte," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-03, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    8. Little, Andrew T., 2022. "Bayesian Explanations for Persuasion," OSF Preprints ygw8e, Center for Open Science.
    9. Swank, Otto H., 2000. "Policy advice, secrecy, and reputational concerns," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 257-271, June.
    10. Klaas J. Beniers & Otto H. Swank, 2003. "On the Composition of Committees," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-006/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Schläpfer, Felix & Schmitt, Marcel & Roschewitz, Anna, 2008. "Competitive politics, simplified heuristics, and preferences for public goods," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 574-589, April.
    12. Luke M. Froeb & Bernhard Ganglmair & Steven Tschantz, 2016. "Adversarial Decision Making: Choosing between Models Constructed by Interested Parties," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 527-548.
    13. Cheryl Boudreau & Mathew D. McCubbins, 2009. "Competition in the Courtroom: When Does Expert Testimony Improve Jurors' Decisions?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(4), pages 793-817, December.
    14. Tsuyoshi Hatori & Hayeong Jeong & Kiyoshi Kobayashi, 2014. "Regional learning and trust formation," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Kiyoshi Kobayashi & Roger R. Stough (ed.), Knowledge, Innovation and Space, chapter 8, pages 180-212, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Schlapfer, Felix & Schmitt, Marcel, 2007. "Anchors, endorsements, and preferences: A field experiment," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 229-243, September.
    16. Cheryl Boudreau & Mathew D. McCubbins, 2008. "Nothing But the Truth? Experiments on Adversarial Competition, Expert Testimony, and Decision Making," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 751-789, December.
    17. David Glick & C Daniel Myers, 2015. "Learning from others: an experimental test of Brownian motion uncertainty models," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(4), pages 588-612, October.
    18. Neunzig, Alexander R., 2002. "Effiziente Fixlohnverträge für arbeitsfreudige Arbeitnehmer mit Berichtspflichten," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-05, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    19. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2002. "Costly signaling and cheap talk in models of political influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 263-280, June.
    20. Ryo Arawatari, 2009. "Informatization, voter turnout and income inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(1), pages 29-54, March.

    More about this item

    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:tin:wpaper:20010052. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.