"Where Ignorance is Bliss, 'tis Folly to be Wise": Transparency in Contests

Increasingly, lobbying groups are subject to transparency requirements, obliging them to provide detailed information about their business. We study the effect this transparency policy has on the nature of lobbying competition. Under mild conditions, mandated transparency leads to an increase in wastefulness of lobbying competition and a decline in expected allocative efficiency. Hence we identify a negative side-effect of transparency policy, which also has implications for various other fields such as political campaigning or firm competition.