Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency » (Reprint)

Archon Fung is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research examines the impacts on public and private governance of civic participation, public deliberation, and transparency. He has authored three books, including Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (2004); three edited collections; and more than fifty articles appearing in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Journal of Political Philosophy, Politics and Society, Governance, and Journal of Policy and Management.

Mary Graham is a Research Fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her research focuses on the use of information strategies to foster social change, the politics of public information, innovative approaches to health and safety regulation, and new trends in environmental policy. She is the author of Democracy by Disclosure (2002) and The Morning After Earth Day (1999). Graham has written for the Atlantic Monthly, Financial Times, Environment magazine, Issues in Science and Technology, Brookings Review, and other publications.

David Weil is Professor of Economics and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Management. His research spans the areas of labor market policy, industrial and labor relations, occupational safety and health, and regulatory policy. He has published widely in these areas and has also served as advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other government agencies. He has written two other books (including the award-winning A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and theTransformation of Manufacturing, 1999) and his articles have appeared in numerous journals including the RAND Journal of Economics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Full Disclosure is the first analysis of national and international transparency policies.

List of Figures and Tables     x
Preface     xi
Governance by Transparency     1
The New Power of Information     1
Transparency Informs Choice     5
Transparency as Missed Opportunity     7
A Real-Time Experiment     10
Transparency Success and Failure     14
How the Book Is Organized     15
An Unlikely Policy Innovation     19
An Unplanned Invention     20
The Struggle Toward Openness     24
Why Disclosure?     30
Designing Transparency Policies     35
Improving On-the-Job Safety: One Goal, Many Methods     35
Disclosure to Create Incentives for Change     37
What Targeted Transparency Policies Have in Common     39
Standards, Market Incentives, or Targeted Transparency?     46
What Makes Transparency Work?     50
A Complex Chain Reaction     51
New Information Embedded in User Decisions     54
New Information Embedded in Discloser Decisions     65
Obstacles: Preferences, Biases, and Games     71
How Do Transparency Policies Measure Up?     74
Crafting Effective Transparency Policies     90
WhatMakes Transparency Sustainable?     106
Crisis Drives Financial Disclosure Improvements     107
Sustainable Policies     109
The Politics of Disclosure     110
Humble Beginnings: Prospects for Sustainable Transparency     112
Two Illustrations     115
Shifting Conditions Drive Changes in Sustainability     118
International Transparency     127
How Do International Transparency Policies Work?     129
Why Now?     130
From Private Committee to Public Mandate: International Corporate Financial Reporting     133
Improving a Moribund System: International Disease Reporting     141
The Limits of International Transparency: Labeling Genetically Modified Foods     145
Toward Collaborative Transparency     151
Innovation at the Edge     152
Technology Expands Capacities of Users, Disclosers, and Government     154
Four Emerging Policies     158
Challenges to Collaborative Transparency     164
New Roles for Users, Disclosers, and Government     166
Looking Ahead: Complementary Generations of Transparency     169
Targeted Transparency in the Information Age     170
Two Possible Futures     171
When Transparency Won't Work     173
Crafting Effective Policies     176
The Road Ahead     180
Eighteen Major Cases     183
Targeted Transparency in the United States     183
Targeted Transparency in the International Context     208
Notes     217
Bibliography     257
Index     275