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"Where Ignorance is Bliss, 'tis Folly to be Wise": Transparency in Contests

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Author Info

  • Denter, Philipp

    ()

  • Morgan, John

    ()

  • Sisak, Dana

    ()

Abstract

Increasingly, lobbying groups are subject to transparency requirements, obliging them to provide detailed information about their business. We study the effect this transparency policy has on the nature of lobbying competition. Under mild conditions, mandated transparency leads to an increase in wastefulness of lobbying competition and a decline in expected allocative efficiency. Hence we identify a negative side-effect of transparency policy, which also has implications for various other fields such as political campaigning or firm competition.

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File URL: http://www1.vwa.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-1128.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science in its series Economics Working Paper Series with number 1128.

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Length: 44 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2011:28

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Related research

Keywords: Transparency Policy; Rent-seeking Contests; Information Disclosure; Value of Ignorance;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Philipp Denter & Dana Sisak, 2010. ""Who's the thief?": Asymmetric Information and the Creation of Property Rights," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2010 2010-27, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.

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