This paper analyses the role of information in the search process. Ibuild a simple model of a good with two random attributes with somejoint probability distribution. I consider seemingly unimportant changesin this distribution, i.e. changes which neither affect expected utility norits variance....

This paper is concerned with the role of committees in collective decision-makingprocesses in a world where agents must be motivated to collect information. Committees improvethe quality of decision-making by providing information and by coordinating the collection ofinformation. We address two...

We identify the conditions under which voters can induce political parties to collect information and to select policies which are optimal from the representative voter’s point of view. We show that when parties are office motivated the voting rule should encourage parties to collect...

A well-known rationale for representative democracy is that direct democracy leads to a free-rider problem as to the collection of information. A problem with this rationale is that it takes for granted that representatives collect information. In this paper we examine whether or not electoral...

This article proposes a theory of corporate transparency and its determinants. We show that under imperfect product market competition, the corporate transparency decision affects the value of equity and debt claims differently. We then embed this insight in a model of endogenous investor...

The collection of information necessary fordecision-making is often delegated to agents (e.g. bureaucrats,advisors, lawyers). If both the pros and cons of a decision haveto be examined, it is better to use competing agents instead of asingle agent. The reason is that two conflicting pieces...