Bias and Negligence with Freedom of Information

Abstract

Abstract We analyse decision-making in the presence of Freedom of Information (FOI) rules. A decision-maker chooses whether to acquire costly information to inform his decision regarding a policy action. If information is not disclosed voluntarily a monitor may open a costly investigation, using FOI to access the information. A finding of biased decision-making or negligence in information acquisition generates a reward to the monitor and a penalty to the decision-maker. We find that strengthening FOI to reduce the cost of investigation may increase negligence without necessarily reducing bias. Moreover, increasing the reward for discovering negligence can paradoxically increase negligence in equilibrium.