Persuasion and Transparency

An advisory committee with common values and asymmetric information provides a recommendation to a decision maker facing a binary choice. We investigate the effect of a transparency requirement — making committee members’ actions observable — on the committee’s ability to influence the decision maker. We show that unless the preferences of the committee and decision maker are very close, requiring transparency is harmful, as it destroys the committee’s ability to provide any useful information. In contrast, if committee members are able to verifiably reveal their signals then transparency can be beneficial.