How Does Public Disclosure of Performance Information Affect Politicians’ Attitudes towards Effort Allocation? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Abstract

Does relative performance information (PI) still impact politicians’ attitudes when the potential for external blame or credit is limited? And, if not, is the active disclosure of PI about government activities with a low propensity for media attention an effective strategy for increasing the effect of PI? Despite the tendency to progressively disclose PI, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of publicly disclosing PI is almost non-existent. Hence, a survey embedded experiment was developed, building on self-determination theory and blame-avoidance theory, to assess how the provision of PI with a low propensity to attract media attention affects politicians’ attitudes towards resource allocation and whether this effect is altered by the public disclosure of PI. Data from 795 Belgian (Flemish) local councilors indicates that PI with a low propensity for media attention does impact politicians’ attitudes towards effort allocation but that public disclosure of PI mitigates the effect size in the case of negative-valence PI. Thus, the results draw attention to the unintended—and potentially dysfunctional—effects of the disclosure of PI.

Decision‐Makers’ Generation of Policy Solutions amidst Negative Performance: Invention or Rigidity?

“…A limitation of experiments that communicate performance information to decision‐makers is that the vignettes provided to control and treatment conditions are dissimilar in length (cf. Desmidt and Meyfroodt 2021; Nielsen and Moynihan 2017). Although this study addresses this issue by complementing the vignette of the control condition with municipality‐unspecific information.…”

“…Second, participants within both categories are randomly assigned to either control or treatment condition. The experiment uses experimental vignettes in line with prior experiments on performance information (Desmidt and Meyfroodt 2021; Nielsen and Moynihan 2017). The baseline vignette introduces respondents to the topic of youth care budgeting.…”

The effect of psychological bias on public officials’ attitudes towards the implementation of policy instruments: evidence from survey experiments

“…The attitude of public officials, as implementers, is considered to be an important variable affecting the effectiveness of policy implementation (Desmidt and Meyfroodt 2021; Andersen and Jakobsen 2017; Ajzen and Fishbein 2005). Although policymakers have the authority to develop policies, policy objectives must be met by frontline public officials via the application of policy instruments.…”

Public managers’ trust in citizens and their preferences for behavioral policy instruments: evidence from a mixed-methods study

“…We examine local-level public managers' preferences for behavioral policy instruments, and the effects of trust in citizens on these preferences, using an online crosssectional stated-preference survey among general directors and adjunct general directors of Flemish municipal administrations. When it comes to local policymakers in Flanders, a considerable body of literature has been developed addressing the relation between politician's policy preferences and performance information (George et al, 2020;Lerusse & Van de Walle, 2021;Desmidt & Meyfroodt, 2021b;Lerusse & Van de Walle, 2022), strategic planning practices Desmidt & Meyfroodt, 2021a), and valuation tools (Huijbregts et al, 2022). Remarkably, although these gears of the policy process, in terms of information, practices and tools, are meant and expected to rationalize local politicians' decision-making patterns, cognitive biases and motivated reasoning still emerge (Battaglio et al, 2019).…”