IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jleorg/v38y2022i2p570-612..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Confidential Policy Information: Persuasion, Transparency, and Influence

Author

Listed:
  • Clement Minaudier

Abstract

Transparency of the lobbying process is hailed as an effective means to limit the influence of special interest groups, but should transparency also apply to the information obtained by policy makers (PMs)? This article extends theories of informational lobbying by explicitly modeling the choice of PMs to obtain information before interacting with lobbyists. This approach reveals a new channel for the value of confidentiality: extracting evidence from special interest groups. It shows that, counter-intuitively, the influence of special interest groups can increase as PMs become more expert. These results shed light on the relationship between confidentiality, good governance, and influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Clement Minaudier, 2022. "The Value of Confidential Policy Information: Persuasion, Transparency, and Influence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 570-612.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:38:y:2022:i:2:p:570-612.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewab020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    2. Daniel Carpenter & Michael M. Ting, 2007. "Regulatory Errors with Endogenous Agendas," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 835-852, October.
    3. Gilat Levy, 2007. "Decision Making in Committees: Transparency, Reputation, and Voting Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 150-168, March.
    4. Emiel Awad, 2020. "Persuasive Lobbying with Allied Legislators," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 938-951, October.
    5. Kolotilin, Anton, 2018. "Optimal information disclosure: a linear programming approach," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    6. Jan Beyers & Marcel Hanegraaff, 2017. "Balancing friends and foes: Explaining advocacy styles at global diplomatic conferences," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 461-484, September.
    7. Matthias Dahm & Nicolás Porteiro, 2008. "Informational lobbying under the shadow of political pressure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(4), pages 531-559, May.
    8. Keith E. Schnakenberg, 2017. "Informational Lobbying and Legislative Voting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(1), pages 129-145, January.
    9. Daniel Seidmann, 2011. "A theory of voting patterns and performance in private and public committees," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(1), pages 49-74, January.
    10. Sebastian Fehrler & Niall Hughes, 2018. "How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 181-209, February.
    11. Roumeen Islam, 2006. "Does More Transparency Go Along With Better Governance?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 121-167, July.
    12. Stephane Wolton, 2021. "Lobbying, Inside and Out: How Special Interest Groups Influence Policy Choices," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 16(4), pages 467-503, October.
    13. Ellis, Christopher J. & Groll, Thomas, 2020. "Strategic Legislative Subsidies: Informational Lobbying and the Cost of Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 179-205, February.
    14. Arnaud Dellis & Mandar Oak, 2020. "Subpoena power and informational lobbying," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 188-234, April.
    15. EllenE. Meade & David Stasavage, 2008. "Publicity of Debate and the Incentive to Dissent: Evidence from the US Federal Reserve," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 695-717, April.
    16. Otto H. Swank & Bauke Visser, 2013. "Is Transparency To No Avail?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(4), pages 967-994, October.
    17. Rossella Argenziano & Helen Weeds, 2019. "Bias and Negligence with Freedom of Information," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 2979-2998.
    18. Hojnacki, Marie & Kimball, David C., 1998. "Organized Interests and the Decision of Whom to Lobby in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(4), pages 775-790, December.
    19. Rasmusen, Eric, 1993. "Lobbying When the Decisionmaker Can Acquire Independent Information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(4), pages 899-913, December.
    20. Justin Fox, 2007. "Government transparency and policymaking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 23-44, April.
    21. Felgenhauer, Mike, 2010. "Transparency and special interests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 4-7, January.
    22. Lagerlof, Johan, 1997. "Lobbying, information, and private and social welfare," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 615-637, September.
    23. Yingni Guo & Eran Shmaya, 2019. "The Interval Structure of Optimal Disclosure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 653-675, March.
    24. Gailmard, Sean & Patty, John W., 2019. "Giving Advice Versus Making Decisions: Transparency, Information, and Delegation," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 471-488, July.
    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. Dellis, Arnaud, 2023. "Legislative informational lobbying," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Formal Theories of Special Interest Influence," SocArXiv 47e26, Center for Open Science.

    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. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Formal Theories of Special Interest Influence," SocArXiv 47e26, Center for Open Science.
    2. Mikael Apel & Marianna Blix Grimaldi & Isaiah Hull, 2022. "How Much Information Do Monetary Policy Committees Disclose? Evidence from the FOMC's Minutes and Transcripts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1459-1490, August.
    3. Fehrler, Sebastian & Hughes, Niall, 2014. "How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation (And Why That May Be A Good Thing)," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100440, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Zerbini, Antoine, 2023. "The Case for Lobbying Transparency," SocArXiv w6vam, Center for Open Science.
    5. Dellis, Arnaud, 2023. "Legislative informational lobbying," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    6. Christopher S. Cotton & Arnaud Déllis, 2016. "Informational Lobbying and Agenda Distortion," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 762-793.
    7. Balmaceda, Felipe, 2021. "Private vs. public communication: Difference of opinion and reputational concerns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    8. Daniel Gibbs, 2023. "Individual accountability, collective decision-making," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 524-552, December.
    9. Sebastian Fehrler & Niall Hughes, 2018. "How Transparency Kills Information Aggregation: Theory and Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 181-209, February.
    10. Fehrler, Sebastian & Janas, Moritz, 2021. "Delegation to a Group," IZA Discussion Papers 14426, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Hye Young You, 2023. "Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 445-469, July.
    12. Fehrler, Sebastian & Hahn, Volker, 2020. "Committee Decision-Making under the Threat of Leaks," IZA Discussion Papers 13746, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Rieder, Kilian, 2022. "Monetary policy decision-making by committee: Why, when and how it can work," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Name-Correa, Alvaro J. & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2019. "Social pressure, transparency, and voting in committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    15. Keiichi Morimoto, 2021. "Information Use and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, May.
    16. Otto (O.H.) Swank & Bauke (B.) Visser, 2018. "Committees as Active Audiences: Reputation Concerns and Information Acquisition," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-068/VII, Tinbergen Institute, revised 01 May 2019.
    17. Matthias Dahm & Robert Dur & Amihai Glazer, 2009. "Lobbying of Firms by Voters," Working Papers 080926, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    18. 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.
    19. Chen, Ying & Eraslan, Hulya, 2018. "Learning While Setting Precedents," Working Papers 18-001, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    20. Andrea Mattozzi & Marcos Y. Nakaguma, 2016. "Public versus Secret Voting in Committees," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2016_29, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:oup:jleorg:v:38:y:2022:i:2:p:570-612.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jleo .

    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.