When performance measures are used for evaluation purposes, agents have some incentives to learn how their actions affect these measures. We show that the use of imperfect performance measures can cause an agent to devote too many resources (too much effort) to acquiring information. Doing so...

The paper analyzes the question who should be provided with incentives to acquire and reveal information about the quality of an investment proposal: the division manager, who derives private benefits of control from the project and always wants to invest, or the capital budgeting department,...