Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency

by Archon Fung, Mary Graham, David Weil

Which 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.

300 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2007

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the potential and pitfalls of organizational transparency. Features interesting cases.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A review of various targeted transparency policies and their core elements of success. The book analyzes 18 past policies to demonstrate the importance of user centered approaches to change decision making through greater information. The ultimate question is how do you embed new information into a users decision making process; requiring new information to be valued, acquired at a low cost, available when and where decisions are made, comprehensible, and connected to a perceived immediate or long-term gain. It would have helped if the book explored more areas of non-governmental intervention to drive market changes through greater transparency, rather than making government intervention a prerequisite.

[Alissa Thorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on targeted transparency policies in government. It gave a lot of context for the ways and reasons that transparency fails or succeeds in general. Additionally, for someone who is for transparency but against compulsory policies, it provided a really thought provoking perspective. Easy to read too.