Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282079 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 387
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, München und Berlin
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 high-performing (low-performing) states. We conclude that increasing the public salience of educational performance information may incentivize politicians to implement welfare-enhancing reforms.
Subjects: 
yardstick competition
beliefs
information
citizens
politicians
survey experiment
JEL: 
H11
I28
D83
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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