Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure

By G. Jin, Michael Luca, Daniel Martin. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2015

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This paper uses laboratory experiments to directly test a central prediction of disclosure theory: that strategic forces can lead those who possess private information to voluntarily provide it. In a simple sender-receiver game, we find that senders disclose favorable information, but withhold unfavorable information. The degree to which senders withhold information is strongly related to their stated beliefs about receiver actions, and their stated beliefs are accurate on average. Receiver actions are also strongly related to their stated beliefs, but their actions and beliefs suggest that many are insufficiently skeptical about nondisclosed information in the absence of repeated feedback. (JEL C70, D82, D83)

Subfields: Management Science and Operations Research, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/41af3ac33fca483efc83c6baf35cfaf73784ac12