Prat, Andrea (2003) The wrong kind of transparency. 3859. Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, UK.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
In a model of career concerns for experts, when is a principal hurt from observing more information about their agent? This Paper introduces a distinction between information on the consequence of the agent’s action and information directly on the agent’s action. When the latter kind of information is available, the agent faces an incentive to disregard useful private signals and act according to how an able agent is expected to act a priori. This conformist behaviour hurts the principal in two ways: the decision made by the agent is less likely to be the right one (discipline) and ex post it is more difficult to evaluate the agent’s ability (sorting). The Paper identifies a necessary and sufficient condition on the agent signal structure under which transparency on action is detrimental to the principal. The Paper also shows the existence of complementarities between transparency on action and transparency on consequence. The results on the distinction between transparency on action and transparency on consequence are then used to interpret existing disclosure policies in politics, corporate governance, and delegated portfolio management.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Discussion Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.cepr.org |
| Additional Information: | © 2003 Andrea Prat |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | disclosure, expert agents and transparency |
| Library of Congress subject classification: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Journal of Economic Literature Classification System: | D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information |
| Sets: | Collections > Economists Online Departments > Economics Research centres and groups > Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) |
| Rights: | http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/rights/LSERO.htm |
| Identification Number: | 3859 |
| URL: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/5215/ |
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