Transparency and policy competition: Experimental evidence from German citizens and politicians

Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer, Justus Nover and Katharina Werner

No 23-007, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system. Experimentally providing performance information polarizes citizens' political satisfaction between high- and low-performing states and increases their demand for greater transparency of states' educational performance. Parliamentarians' support for the transparency policy is opportunistic: Performance information increases (decreases) policy support in highperforming (low-performing) states. We conclude that increasing the public salience of educational performance information may incentivize politicians to implement welfare-enhancing reforms.

Keywords: yardstick competition; beliefs; information; citizens; politicians; survey experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 H11 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/270442/1/1839694548.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians (2023)
Working Paper: Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians (2023)
Working Paper: Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians (2023)
Working Paper: Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:23007

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