Empty Reasons? Evidence from a Natural Experiment on the Effect of Public Reasoning Requirements
Edward H. Stiglitz
What the paper says
Norms of reason-giving rest at the foundation of public institutions, plausibly disciplining officials where financial and electoral incentives do not apply. Yet do requirements for reason-giving induce officials to pursue statutory objectives or behave prosocially? Little observational evidence exists on this question. I study a natural experiment in federal procurement in which contracting officials were required to provide reasons if they awarded certain noncompetitive contracts but only if valued above a statutory threshold. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that the reason-giving requirement substantially increased the probability that officials competed contracts, thus complying with the statutory objective. I also explore a discontinuity design but discover sorting around the threshold by sophisticated entities, further supporting the materiality of reason-giving. Secondary results suggest the requirement reduced the volume of contracts awarded and altered the composition of firms receiving contracts. These findings speak to the force of reason-giving requirements and their complex trade-offs.
1 citation
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06 |
| M · momentum | 0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.