Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of TransparencyWhich SUVs are most likely to rollover? What cities have the unhealthiest drinking water? Which factories are the most dangerous polluters? What cereals are the most nutritious? In recent decades, governments have sought to provide answers to such critical questions through public disclosure to force manufacturers, water authorities, and others to improve their products and practices. Corporate financial disclosure, nutritional labels, and school report cards are examples of such targeted transparency policies. At best, they create a light-handed approach to governance that improves markets, enriches public discourse, and empowers citizens. But such policies are frequently ineffective or counterproductive. Based on an analysis of eighteen U.S. and international policies, Full Disclosure shows that information is often incomplete, incomprehensible, or irrelevant to consumers, investors, workers, and community residents. To be successful, transparency policies must be accurate, keep ahead of disclosers' efforts to find loopholes, and, above all, focus on the needs of ordinary citizens. |
Contents
Governance by Transparency | 1 |
Tables | 8 |
An Unlikely Policy Innovation | 19 |
Designing Transparency Policies | 35 |
Transparency Policies | 40 |
What Makes Transparency Work? | 50 |
Policies | 71 |
What Makes Transparency Sustainable? | 106 |
Other editions - View all
Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency Archon Fung,Mary Graham,David Weil Limited preview - 2007 |
Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency Archon Fung,Mary Graham,David Weil Limited preview - 2007 |
Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency Archon Fung,Mary Graham,David Weil No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
accessed Accounting Office action Administration auto banks behavior benefits Cardiac Surgery changes chemical choices codified companies Congress consumers costs countries create customers decisions disclosure requirements disclosure rules disclosure system Drinking Water economic effective embedded employers enforcement Enron environmental European example federal financial reporting firms genetically modified foods Global goals Government Accountability Office Graham groups hospitals impact improve incentives increased information asymmetries information users Institute of Medicine International Accounting Standards international transparency Internet investors Journal Labor layoffs legislation Leuz manufacturers Megan’s Laws Moderate mortgage lending disclosure MSDS nutritional labeling organizations parency Patient Safety percent policymakers political problems public health ratings reduce risks regulators regulatory Research response restaurant hygiene right-to-know rollover Sex Offender Registration sex offenders specific Stat targeted transparency policies tion toxic pollution Toxics Release Toxics Release Inventory union United users and disclosers Washington workers Workplace Hazards WorldCom